in "the tempest", miranda exclaims, "oh, brave new world that has such creatures in't"; she is excited by the several men who have appeared, miraculously, on the island, the only men (besides her father and caliban) that she has ever seen

of course, her father and the audience know these men to be corrupt--calibans without the external ugliness; thus, prompting prospero's response: "'tis new to you"

orwell receives due credit for the prescience of "1984", but i think huxley was even more insightful about where humanity was headed...behold:

‘Sex box’ to get new name as parents revolt

Officials in Basel have agreed to rename the “sex box” after receiving some 3,000 letters of protest from parents angered by the controversial trove of wooden penises and fabric vaginas set to be used in a new sex education programme for playschool and primary school kids.

Christoph Eymann, Basel education minister and member of the liberal democrat party (LDP), responded to parent’s protests in an interview with SonntagsBlick.

“It was no doubt stupid to call it a ’sex box’ – we will change that. But we will stick to our goal: to get across to children that sexuality is something natural. Without forcing anything upon them or taking anything away from their parents,“ he said.

Many parents say they do not understand why sex education needs to be taught to children as young as four.

“There are usually two reasons why sexuality becomes a topic in kindergarten: either the teacher is pregnant or one of the children will soon get a new sister or brother. In such cases, it is correct that the teacher can respond”, Eymann told SonntagsBlick.

Eymann said he understood that one line in the programme, “touching can be enjoyed heartily”, could be misconstrued, but insisted: “It is not about ‘touch me, feel me’. We want to tell the children that there is contact that they may find pleasurable, but some that they should say ’no’ to. Kids can unfortunately can become victims of sexual violence already at playschool age.“

Eymann said he would prefer if sex education was taught to children at home but argued that education officials needed to respond to the realities of today.

“We currently live in an oversexualised society. There is uncontrolled distribution of pornographic material that can reach young children. Some primary school children know the TV schedule until 2am. We would like to offer these children firm support, which is often not available in the family. The box is only an aid. I trust the teachers to approach the material with care.”

Despite this, Eymann said he takes critics’ arguments seriously, and has ordered the contents of the box to be examined after finding the cover of previous teaching material tasteless.

Some parents have called for their children to be exempted from sex education. Eymann says he is strictly against exemptions, although he is aware this will not make him many friends:

“Primary school may be the only big audience that our society has. The shared values that it teaches are very important. I would definitely like to keep this. The explanatory lesson can be portrayed in a way that doesn’t offend“, he said.

Critics of public school sex education have been warning of this for decades: Once you start down the slippery slope of teaching kids about the mechanics of sex, it will invariably (in some school districts at least) eventually lead to advocacy for sex. Combine that with the relentless drive to introduce sex ed at lower and lower grades, and you end up with what’s happening in Switzerland: Telling four-year-olds how pleasurable sex is and leading them in classroom activities that are tantamount to public masturbation:

‘Sex box’ for Swiss kindergarteners has genitalia toys: will teach sexuality is pleasurable

Kindergarten children in Basel, Switzerland will be presented this year with fabric models of human genitalia in a “sex box” to teach them that “contacting body parts can be pleasurable.”

The kit for teachers to give sex-education lessons to primary school children uses models and recommends having children massage each other or to rub themselves with warm sand bags, accompanied by soft music….

I can no longer deny what I’ve long merely suspected: That many “progressive” educators use mandatory public school sex education specifically for the purpose of indoctrinating entire generations of children into being promiscuous as early as possible. Why? To cause the breakdown of the nuclear family, to pave the road for a Brave New World.

Yesterday, it only happened in fiction. Today, it happens in Switzerland. Tomorrow — coming to a school near you.

Once you start down the slippery slope of teaching kids about the mechanics of sex, it will invariably (in some school districts at least) eventually lead to advocacy for sex. Combine that with the relentless drive to introduce sex ed at lower and lower grades, and you end up with what’s happening in Switzerland: Telling four-year-olds how pleasurable sex is and leading them in classroom activities that are tantamount to public masturbation:

if your neighbor was offering the same "education" and sharing the same "toys" you'd have him arrested for child abuse; however, since these people are "educators" (whatever that means), you're willing to abdicate your responsibilities as parents or, worse, your responsibilities as citizens while you send your own children to private school

The Wetaskiwin, Alta., woman convicted of infanticide for killing her newborn son, was given a three-year suspended sentence Friday by an Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench judge.

Katrina Effert was 19 on April 13, 2005, when she secretly gave birth in her parents’ home, strangled the baby boy with her underwear and threw the body over a fence into a neighbour’s yard…

Effert will have to abide by conditions for the next three years but she won’t spend time behind bars for strangling her newborn son.

Indeed. As Judge Joanne Veit puts it:

“While many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support,” she writes… “Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant’s death, especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother.”

Gotcha. So a superior court judge in a relatively civilized jurisdiction is happy to extend the principles underlying legalized abortion in order to mitigate the killing of a legal person — that’s to say, someone who has managed to make it to the post-fetus stage. How long do those mitigating factors apply? I mean, “onerous demands”-wise, the first month of a newborn’s life is no picnic for the mother. How about six months in? The terrible twos?

Speaking of “onerous demands,” suppose you’re a “mother without support” who’s also got an elderly relative around with an “onerous” chronic condition also making inroads into your time?

And in what sense was Miss Effert a “mother without support”? She lived at home with her parents, who provided her with food and shelter. How smoothly the slick euphemisms — “accept and sympathize . . . onerous demands” — lubricate the slippery slope.

go ahead, google obama and the born alive infant protection act--i dare you

Bookworm: Had Caliban gotten Miranda with child, Prospero would be first in line with her at the island's abortion clinic. As one eng. teacher to another, I disagree with your plot interpretation of the Tempest in post one.

tony, i'd like to know if you have pictures of your mother and sister embracing...while wearing lingerie; or your wife and mother-in-law

or if you look forward to taking pictures of your wife and daughter embracing...while wearing lingerie...and if you would display them around your house

if not, why not? perhaps your "sensibilities" might encourage you to take a few snapshots of yourself and your father embracing...while wearing jockstraps...or yourself and your son? certainly, there's nothing to "fear", right?

didn't answer my question, bookie, and i'll assume you haven't had kids of your own to raise.

today's kids are jaded about sex even before they reach puberty. you can thank various modern media for that, but primarily movies and the internet. if you have parental controls on there, you can bet they have friends who don't, and it really doesn't matter one way or the other. as with every generation, when kids come into their own sexuality they are faced with the dilemma of temptation versus responsibility, and perhaps they deal with it better than was done in less honest times.

the main reason hypocrisies like this rankle me is that our society does miserably in engaging young people and providing them with social structures to see them through this time. so-called primitive societies do much better, with realistic puberty/adulthood rites and traditions which have been tried and true from time immemorial. our society suffers from 2,000 years of christian negation of normal human sexuality. the best we can come up with? the senior prom. first big date. get laid! pregnant? oh, dear ...

our society suffers from 2,000 years of christian negation of normal human sexuality.

No, Tony, you don't understand. There's this old guy in Rome who wears a dress and has never had any sex (well, not with a woman, anyway) in his life who knows what is best for you and your children. He says sex is bad, so you should listen to him.

and you didn't answer my questions, either, which were actually questions

and where's the hypocrisy?

and do you really argue that sexual mores were less stringent before the advent of christianity, thereby ignoring at least 3,000 years of judaism, not to mention the countless other belief systems that sought to control man's sexual appetite? ever read plato or the five precepts of buddhism? and, out of curiosity, why do you single out christianity and ignore the medieval methods (i.e. female circumcision)of modern muslim societies? talk about "fear"

do you argue that kids should have free access to porn? do you allow your kids such freedom? do you suggest that porn is the best way for kids to learn how to deal with their emerging sexuality? sexting ok with you, too? will you encourage your kids to partake in such "explorations"?

i applaud celebrating the beauty and sexuality of older women, but, yeah, i'm creeped out by COMMERCIAL ADS that specifically portray a mother and daughter wearing lingerie in sexually suggestive poses

ghost, obviously, you don't understand christianity, either, which says that sex is awesome but that we need to control our urges...and, again, why not any bigoted comments about muslims? coward

Coward? I'm a coward because I don't make bigoted comments about muslims?

For what it's worth, the Muslim tradition seems to have an even more disturbing view of women and sex than the Christian one. (There, I said it, does that make me brave in your eyes?)

Now, about the other thing. You say christianity says "that sex is awesome." If that's true, I must have missed it in the bible. Can you point me to the right chapter and verse? I can remember things like it being okay to conquer people and make them slaves, and that I should put adulterers to death, and that if I get a wound in my testicles I can't enter the house of the lord, but I really don't remember "Sex is awesome."

the bible/christianity condemns sex outside of marriage; however, inside marriage, sex is celebrated as a sacred act of creation; the catholics, in particular, (and mormons, too, i think) promote a vigorous sex life within marriage

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Facing terror with music, tens of thousands gathered in squares across Norway to sing a children's song that gunman Anders Behring Breivik claimed is being used to brainwash young Norwegians.

The defiant Facebook protest against the right-wing fanatic took place as survivors gave tearful testimony Thursday in his trial for the July 22 bombing-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people, mostly teenagers.

Some 40,000 people converged at a central square in Oslo in the pouring rain to sing the 1970's song "Children of the Rainbow" — a Norwegian version of American folk music singer Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Race."

Later they were to lay roses on the steps of the courthouse in memory of those killed in the massacre.

In testimony last week, Breivik mentioned the song as an example of how he believes "cultural Marxists" have infiltrated Norwegian schools, triggering a Facebook intiative for Thursday's protests.

Shocked by Breivik's lack of remorse for his massacre, Norwegians by and large have decided the best way to confront him is by demonstrating their commitment to everything he loathes.

In court Thursday, people who survived Breivik's car bomb in Olso's government district gave emotional testimony as he listened expressionless.

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Facing terror with music, tens of thousands gathered in squares across Norway to sing a children's song that gunman Anders Behring Breivik claimed is being used to brainwash young Norwegians.

The defiant Facebook protest against the right-wing fanatic took place as survivors gave tearful testimony Thursday in his trial for the July 22 bombing-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people, mostly teenagers.

Some 40,000 people converged at a central square in Oslo in the pouring rain to sing the 1970's song "Children of the Rainbow" — a Norwegian version of American folk music singer Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Race."

Later they were to lay roses on the steps of the courthouse in memory of those killed in the massacre.

In testimony last week, Breivik mentioned the song as an example of how he believes "cultural Marxists" have infiltrated Norwegian schools, triggering a Facebook intiative for Thursday's protests.

Shocked by Breivik's lack of remorse for his massacre, Norwegians by and large have decided the best way to confront him is by demonstrating their commitment to everything he loathes.

In court Thursday, people who survived Breivik's car bomb in Olso's government district gave emotional testimony as he listened expressionless.

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Facing terror with music, tens of thousands gathered in squares across Norway to sing a children's song that gunman Anders Behring Breivik claimed is being used to brainwash young Norwegians.

The defiant Facebook protest against the right-wing fanatic took place as survivors gave tearful testimony Thursday in his trial for the July 22 bombing-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people, mostly teenagers.

Some 40,000 people converged at a central square in Oslo in the pouring rain to sing the 1970's song "Children of the Rainbow" — a Norwegian version of American folk music singer Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Race."

Later they were to lay roses on the steps of the courthouse in memory of those killed in the massacre.

In testimony last week, Breivik mentioned the song as an example of how he believes "cultural Marxists" have infiltrated Norwegian schools, triggering a Facebook intiative for Thursday's protests.

Shocked by Breivik's lack of remorse for his massacre, Norwegians by and large have decided the best way to confront him is by demonstrating their commitment to everything he loathes.

In court Thursday, people who survived Breivik's car bomb in Olso's government district gave emotional testimony as he listened expressionless.

There's this old guy in Rome who wears a dress and has never had any sex (well, not with a woman, anyway) in his life who knows what is best for you and your children. He says sex is bad, so you should listen to him.

Ghost for the win, again....

And since nookie, er, I mean bookie wants to see a picture of my sister:
It's ok man, you may pray for her.

When I see stickers or t-shirts that say "Real Men Love Jesus" should I think of that as gay necrophilia? If you think that question is offensive, consider all that has been done in the name of religion, order, salvation, etc...

remember our little spat a few years back when you were whining about waterboarding and defending abortion? i offered an opportunity to demonstrate the courage of your convictions: i'll let you waterboard me, if you let me abort you (and you can go first)

you replied, "i can't be aborted because i've already been born"

well, according to planned parenthood (an organization i'm sure you support unconditionally) you can still be aborted

so, i make my offer again...c'mon, f, here's your chance to prove waterboarding is "torture" on a loathsome conservative...all i get to do is eliminate a "clump of cells" that i find inconvenient

huh, lacking much in the way of reasonable explanations of sex from my parents (other than dont do it til yer older) i learned quite a bit from porn. lucky i never got anyone pregnant til now, i guess. anyway, theres no such conspiracy as trying to dissolve the "traditional american family". now contrails and obamb as the antichrist on the other hand...

theres a connection here- the aliens brought color tv to roswell, which was subsequently used to brainwash the people with programs like V, where an alien race of lizard people try to take over earth. only we were saved by a bigfoot/godzilla partnership when the prez denounced his stated faith and declared jihad on the infidel lizards because the wanted to teach sex ed using fabric vaginas. what, you missed that episode?

Most common is the first-trimester “suction curettage,” in which the “physician” vacuums the unwanted “embryonic tissue” from the womb. By the time the second trimester is reached, this “tissue” has matured into the unmistakable shape of a child. Thus the “dilation and evacuation” procedure is often called for.

Employed millions of times in this most civilized country over the last half century, “D&E,” the court explained, involves the “physician’s” use of forceps “to tear apart” the “fetus” by “ripping” it from the cervix and then “evacuating the fetus piece by piece . . . until it has been completely removed” from the mother. Often, the justices observed, the D&E “physician” finds it more congenial to “kill the fetus a day or two before performing the surgical evacuation,” since “medical” experience has shown that, “once dead . . . the fetus’ body will soften,” becoming “easier” to dice and remove. Oh, another helpful tip: “Rotating the fetus as it is being pulled decreases the odds of dismemberment.”

By the time Carhart was decided, Roe v. Wade had been on the books for over a generation — the generation, to be more specific, that is now ruling the roost. It goes without saying — for we wouldn’t want to say it — that, in a nation that has absorbed this generation’s preening “values,” D&E already enjoyed the stamp of judicial approval. The only question before the Carhart Court was whether “partial birth” abortion — “intact D&E” — was beyond the pale.

This “medical procedure” is triggered by an advanced stage of maturation, in which the child’s well-developed head tends to “lodge in the cervix.” Relying on the instruction of Martin Haskell, another experienced abortionist, the justices related:

The right-handed surgeon slides the fingers of the left [hand] along the back of the fetus and “hooks” the shoulders of the fetus with the index and ring fingers (palm down). While maintaining this tension, lifting the cervix and applying traction to the shoulders with the fingers of the left hand, the surgeon takes a pair of blunt curved Metzenbaum scissors in the right hand. He carefully advances the tip, curved down, along the spine and under his middle finger until he feels it contact the base of the skull under the tip of his middle finger.

The surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull. . . . He spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. . . . The surgeon [then] removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient.

“Evacuates the skull contents” may be more bracing than “snip,” but it doesn’t quite do justice to the process and the frightful insouciance behind it. That was left to a nurse who had watched Haskell perform the “procedure” on a six-month-old “however way you want to describe it.” She recalled that, once all but the head had been delivered,

the baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.

The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp. . . . He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used."

CONCLUSIONS
If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for
the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an
abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of
the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has
any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the
same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the
killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of
a newborn.

Two considerations need to be added.

First, we do not put forward any claim about the moment
at which after-birth abortion would no longer be permissible, and
we do not think that in fact more than a few days would be
necessary for doctors to detect any abnormality in the child. In
cases where the after-birth abortion were requested for non-
medical reasons, we do not suggest any threshold, as it depends on
the neurological development of newborns, which is something
neurologists and psychologists would be able to assess.

Second, we do not claim that after-birth abortions are good
alternatives to abortion. Abortions at an early stage are the best
option, for both psychological and physical reasons. However, if
a disease has not been detected during the pregnancy, if some-
thing went wrong during the delivery, or if economical, social or
psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the
offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone, then
people should be given the chance of not being forced to do
something they cannot afford.

here's some more casual reading, f; maybe you can whisper these sweet nothings to your wife...or enjoy a page or two over breakfast...or simply bask in the glorious results of your most prized "constitutional right":

so, the ohio kidnapper and child rapist canNOT be executed for kidnapping, imprisoning and raping at least three girls for 10 years based on the scotus' "evolving standards of decency" decision

how's that for a war on women (and children)? i guess libs don't consider his actions "torture"

wait, the prosecutor is considering the death penalty? because the kidnapper/racist beat one of the girls and caused her to have a miscarriage?

"2903.01 Aggravated murder.

(A) No person shall purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another’s pregnancy…

(F) Whoever violates this section is guilty of aggravated murder, and shall be punished as provided in section 2929.02 of the Revised Code."

wait, how can one "cause the death of another" when the other is not alive but simply a fetus? how can one commit "aggravated MURDER" against a "clump of cells"?

wait, doesn't this mean the fetus is given more protection than the woman carrying the fetus? see, it's "evolved decency" to spare a man who kidnaps, imprisons, and rapes a woman for 10 years and to execute a man who terminates a fetus

Why? To cause the breakdown of the nuclear family, to pave the road for a Brave New World.

Huxley and Orwill lived through, and tried to warn of the dangers of State-ism. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis also dove into it in a more indirect manner.

These guys lived through the scourge of totalitarianism firsthand. They witnessed how they State slowly grabs control (in Italy, Germany, and Eastern Europe) and at first, convinces people how awesome it is, until the State can then assume ultimate control. Works the same way every time, whether it's Socialism, Fascism, or Communism.

The common denominators are repressing individualism, personal liberty, and assuming control of the economy.

Regarding the erosion of the cohesive (nuclear) family unit independent from the State, this is a trademark strictly from the Socialist/Communist playbook. This is how they erode the will of the people to become reliant on the State as 'the Family'.

Don't believe me? Read the Communist Manifesto and the Venona Papers. Their explicit goals, amongst others, were to do away with a common religion (an "opiate of the masses" that conjoined people), and to disintegrate the nuclear family. Both things, family and religion, were impediments to full State control of an independent, free people.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I hate Commies and State-ists.

If you can't see that this is happening now, and the goal of our current leaders, you're either stupid or a commie.

Huxley and Orwill lived through, and tried to warn of the dangers of Right Wing Authoritarism. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis also dove into it in a more indirect manner.

These guys lived through the scourge of Right wing totalitarianism firsthand. They witnessed how they State slowly grabs control (in Italy, Germany, and Eastern Europe) and at first, convinces people how awesome it is, until the State can then assume ultimate control. Works the same way every time, whether it's capitalism, Fascism, or Right Wing Stalinist Communism.

The common denominators is the Right Wing repressing individualism, personal liberty, and assuming control of the economy.

You're entitled to your own crazy rantings, but most literary scholars would disagree with your assessment of their works. As the authors would themselves.

Have read their works? Do you think you're clever for wrongly distorting their intents?

It's rather easy to pull bullshit out of your ass, but it doesn't make it accurate.

No distortion blue. Dr. Fs assessment of OrwEll is spot on. Lit major at UCLA and about a hair breathes awaynfrom going intoma doctorate program, so I think I'm pretty well read.

BTW, don't mistake the right's free market approach as an example of their claimed belief in a small, less restrictive government. Sure they like little regulation of business but they favor less individual rights, such broader search and seizures, eliminating Miranda rights, a woman's right to choose, forcing school prayer, the desth penalty. Sounds big brotherish to me.

"the Right Wingers that rule by totalitarism, including Russian and Red Chinese Communism"

stalin and mao were right-wingers? i swear, f, i think you're just having fun because nobody could be that idiotic (the ucla-indoctrinated, aside)... but i'm resisting the urge to educate you because i know it will be a waste time

"Lit major at UCLA [that explains everything] and about a hair breathes awaynfrom going intoma doctorate program, so I think I'm pretty well read"

i'll assume you were drunk typing... still, you have another think coming:

favor less individual rights: actually, it's FEWER rights (and LESS freedom), but i digress...it's right-wingers who fight to keep our rights--to bear arms, to speak/think/worship freely, to encourage the press to challenge power, etc...libs, on the other hand, want to limit these rights...libs want to eliminate gun ownership (as did stalin, mao, and hitler); libs have implemented speech codes on college campuses and invent new words to hide their intents (as did stalin, mao, and hitler) such as "reproductive health" to refer to killing babies, "leading from behind" to color barry's cowardice, "job lock" to excuse barrycare's deincentivizing work for greater government largesse, and claiming any and all criticism of barry is "racist"...it's also barry who avoids/restricts/ abuses the press

broader search and seizures and eliminating Miranda rights: it's conservatives rand paul, ted cruz, and mike lee who are protesting barry's expansion of the patriot act and it's barry who is assassinating american citizens without declaring formal charges, acquiring arrest warrants, and allowing a fair and public trial

a woman's right to choose: i'll assume you want abortion any time under any circumstances so it's a matter of timing; conservatives absolutely believe every woman has a right to choose whether she has a baby; we simply believe she should make that choice BEFORE she has sex rather than after and that convenience is not a legitimate reason for terminating a life...concerning rape and the mother's health, it's still a matter of timing but different context; i believe life and "personhood" begin at conception so an abortion is killing a human being--an innocent human being...until you can prove conception does not instantly create a human being, i can't condone abortion at any time

forcing school prayer: actually, allowing school prayer; nobody can "force" you to pray; nobody can impose their beliefs on you unless you are too weak-minded even to ignore them...see no amount of reason, facts, truth, etc. are going to persuade you your entire world view is wrong (partly because you don't believe in right and wrong) so why are you so frightened by an elementary school child passing out christmas cards to classmates or a school choir concert that highlights christmas carols or a sculpture of the 10 commandments on the courthouse lawn?

the desth penalty: actually, i'm opposed, but i do believe in "cruel and unusual punishment" for heinous crimes like raping and murdering a child...you libs want to make sure child rapists/murderers are comfortable in prison and allowed to vote...granted, there's nothing stalinist about that position; it's just absurd

by the way, "lit majors" (unlike english majors) don't believe that literature has any "meaning" so your support of f's meaning is tantamount to a direct refutation of all you've been taught (so maybe there is hope for you...)

my favorite: "You take advantage of a national disaster such as an economic collapse or an attack to demonize your opponents and push your agenda. You use these events to strike fear into the population in an attempt to scare people into voting for you and your cause. It’s all about fear and scare tactics."

""don't let a crisis go to waste"...Rahm Emmanuel...barry's first chief of staff...now, f, explain how both he and barry are tea party advocates

ok, back to business:

“What really bothered me is, the whole idea is that at a liberal arts college, we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion,”

i'm sure you're very proud, f; you're protecting thousands of black babies from the horrors of voter id laws, the despair of job lock, the burden of paying for their own birth control, the pain and suffering from the war on women, and the shame of growing up in a racist nation...i expect you'll be doubling your monthly contribution to planned parenthood

He hopped onto the coattails of Bush's and used them to yet further extend government power over the lives of everyday Americans.

Which one?

You name it. How about 9/11 for a start. How about recession? Banking meltdown? Pick your poison!

What did he do?

Cleverly, he promised very specific "change" on a host of levels. Then, once elected, the only "change" he implemented was to oversee much, much MORE of EXACTLY the same crap as we got with Bush, and for the EXACT same motivations:

** Big government and ever-increasing spending: "We've got to spend some money now to pull us out of this recession. But as soon as we're out of this recession, we've got to get serious about starting to live within our means, instead of leaving debt for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren." (Is this the same guy that refused to negotiate in ANY way with Republicans concerned to reduce spending before raising the debt limit? Is this the guy that has now FAR outspent even Bush, and he's not done yet!?!)

** Corporations suckling at the teat? Business as usual. No change in sight.

** Continuation of futile and even illegal wars: "If we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home, we will end this war. You can take that to the bank." All I can take to the bank under Obama is LESS.

** Guantanamo: "We will close the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, the location of so many of the worst constitutional abuses in recent years." Where was the executive action? Where was the whole-Congress Democratic majority in getting this done?

** Domestic spying: "We reject the use of national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime" Apparently "reject" actually means "embrace" in the Obamactionary.

** The Patriot Act: "We will revisit the Patriot Act and overturn unconstitutional executive decisions issued during the past eight years." Where was an executive action? Where was the Democratic Congress in getting this done?

** Habeas corpus: "We don’t always catch the right person. We may think this is Mohammed the terrorist, it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it's Barack the bomb thrower, but it's Barack the guy running for president. So the reason that you have this principle [habeas corpus] is not to be soft on terrorism, it's because that’s who we are. That's what we're protecting." Okay, so where IS it?

** FOIA requests: "The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails... In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public." Oh, wow! Seriously?

** Tracking of citizens: "We reject the tracking of citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war." No, instead "we" FULLY support the tracking of EVERYBODY at a scope not imagined before in human history! This is another case where in Obama's "dictionary," the word "reject" really means "embrace."

** Warrantless wiretapping: "We will review the current Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program." And, apparently, after review, "we" will find it just FAB and want to extend it even further into the lives of Americans, and then LIE about what we're doing until we get caught at it (see the following item).

** Whistleblowers: "Often the best source about waste, fraud and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism . . . should be encouraged rather than stifled." Uhhh... the name Snowden come to mind?

** Tax increases? "I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." Okay, flat out LIE! Even Obamacare was "legalized" by being called a "tax."

** Government transparency? "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government." Uhh... it is to laugh (or cry).

And, keep in mind that when Obama was elected, the Democrats owned Congress and only extended their majority in both houses. For all of his presidency, Democrats have had the majority in the Senate, and for most of his presidency, Democrats have had a majority in the House. So, you can't blame Congress for Obama's failures, lies, and broken promises. HIS party OWNED the government, and at the very time when he enjoyed an unprecedented honeymoon period with Americans!

How did it work out?

Well, history doesn't yet have a solid "take," but the initial results strongly suggest: It is the SUCK!

After trying to "claim" George Orwell and other famous authors for the side of right-wing America (and being challenged by Dr F), bluering wrote

most literary scholars would disagree with your assessment of their works. As the authors would themselves. -bluering

But what if I told you that George Orwell was one of the most famous socialists of the 20th century, that he was a member of socialist groups, fought alongside communists in the Spanish Civil War, and believed himself to be a "democratic socialist"? What if I told you that Orwell would be in agreement with Dr F that

It's always the Right Wingers that rule by totalitarism, including Russian and Red Chinese Communism, they were the opposite of anything liberal - Dr F

After all, in a preface to Animal Farm, Orwell wrote

nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russia is a Socialist country - George Orwell

and from The Road to Wigan Pier

The hoary legend of Communism leading to Fascism. ... The element of truth in it is this: that the appearance of Communist activity warns the ruling class that democratic Labour Parties are no longer capable of holding the working class in check, and that capitalist dictatorship must assume another form if it is to survive. - Orwell

Or if that's not blunt enough for you, how about

please notice that I am arguing for Socialism, not against it. - Orwell

So just how are literary scholars supposed to interpret these words, in your opinion? Or perhaps you've just been engaged in a little bit of doublethink?

Edited to note:
I'm not trying to "claim" George Orwell as a Democrat, just to be clear. There is little doubt he would have many critical things to say about the Obama administration and American partisanship in general. Just pointing out that were he alive today, he would be raked over the coals by Fox News and conservative Christians as a 'radical Commie ideologue'. But since he is not alive, right-wingers have instead opted for the 'revisionary history' route. Conservative bloggers and Glenn Beck pull his quotes out of context and public schools teach Animal Farm to children as a sort of Cold War narrative about the triumph of capitalism in America and evil failures of communist Russia. It so richly ironic and absolutely absurd that the works of Orwell should be appropriated in such an Orwellian way; one can't help but laugh.

An anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun to consider himself a socialist. In 1936, he was commissioned to write an account of poverty among unemployed miners in northern England, which resulted in 'The Road to Wigan Pier' (1937). Late in 1936, Orwell travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. He was forced to flee in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters. The experience turned him into a lifelong anti-Stalinist.

Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. By now he was a prolific journalist, writing articles, reviews and books.

Sounds like every young lad. "If you aren't liberal when you're young, you have no heart, and if you are still liberal when you mature, you have no brains".

Interesting, Cait. I read into to 'A Brave New World' something different.

It was what feminism will eventually do. And an obsession with sex and not long-term companionship, or the family unit.

It was about personal pleasure at all costs, not creating family units. The destruction of the family was always a goal of communists, and that's where I think Huxley was going. The Venona Papers would later validate this notion of the Commies.

Feminism is fine in moderation, like all other things. But like environmentalism it can be taken to drastic extremes. Unreasonable extremes. Another example would be religious extremists.

I find it interesting that you read anti-woman bias into his book. I found it more nihilistic, anti-family.

Feminism is about women's right to ENVISION, CHOOSE and CREATE circumstances and opportunities in their lives. It has nothing to do with a destruction of family.

Unless you think a woman forced to bear children, and having opportunities withheld from her so she must be dependent on a man for survival is imperative as a guard against the breakdown of the traditional western family ideal.

Hehe! As for Huxley, I guess we all read out of his work what is in our hearts. Our own perceptions. Which is maybe why his work is so popular/controversial.

EDIT:

Unless you think a woman forced to bear children, and having opportunities withheld from her so she must be dependent on a man for survival is imperative as a guard against the breakdown of the traditional western family ideal.

George Orwell would be a conservative independent if he were alive today...

That may be the stupidest f*#king thing I've ever read.

An anarchist in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he had begun to consider himself a socialist. In 1936, he was commissioned to write an account of poverty among unemployed miners in northern England, which resulted in 'The Road to Wigan Pier' (1937). Late in 1936, Orwell travelled to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists. He was forced to flee in fear of his life from Soviet-backed communists who were suppressing revolutionary socialist dissenters. The experience turned him into a lifelong anti-Stalinist.

Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. By now he was a prolific journalist, writing articles, reviews and books.

Sounds like every young lad. "If you aren't liberal when you're young, you have no heart, and if you are still liberal when you mature, you have no brains".

Bryan, you are trying to make Orwell seem like a socialist or commie.

That may be the stupidest f*#king analysis I've ever read. How could you possibly reach that conclusion from your quoted material?

Bluering, is there a community college near you? You might want to see if they have courses on logic and/or rhetoric.

If you really want the gist of what Brave New World is all about, read Brave New World Revisited.

From the back cover....

"BNWR includes Huxley's views on overpopulation, propaganda, advertising, and government control, and is an urgent and powerful appeal for the defense of individualism that is still alarmingly relevant today"

IMO, I also feel BNW is a glimpse into the very real future of designer human beings, the modern day eugenics if you will.

Add to the above (from BNWR).....

"Death control is something which can be provided for a whole people by a few technicians working in the pay of a benevolent government."

As an aside, I seem to be noticing this push from media, and medical community to label everyone as mentally ill.
It's almost as if they want to get us all on some sort of Pharmacuetical drug or other. Soma, anyone?

Again, I think the gist of BNW was that of totalitarianism, whether it be Fascist, Communist, or anti-Feminist.

It was about a...wait....New World Order, where the paradigm of individualism is shifted towards gov't control of how you should conduct yourself. Of what is "acceptable" or "allowed" behaviors.

People like to put Communism and Fascism on opposite sides of the left-right political spectrum, but they are one in their totalitarianism.

Once you understand totalitaranism, nothing really matters. All the stupid labels. Liberty and personal freedom is all that matters. That also includes Feminism, whatever that means now. I'm still puzzled by it.

Yes, I'm not disputing that. It's the conclusion you drew from it that baffles me.

Was he an anti-Stalinist? You bet, but that didn't make him conservative. The socialists and the anarchists fighting on the republican side in the Spanish Civil War all came to hate Moscow and Berlin with equal fervor.

Did he write propaganda for the BBC? You bet, Britain was in a death struggle with fascism. The fact that he wrote for the BBC doesn't make him conservative.

You have one more false idea, that Orwell was a liberal. No, he was too far to the left to be a liberal.

Sully and I merely misinterpreted the gist of the literature. She saw misogyny, and I saw totalitarian twisting of culture and values.

I think we're both right, but Sully seems to dwell on the mysogyist part and miss the bigger picture.

More accurately, I think, is that she just pointed out a perceived trend in the style of the author, with which I'd disagree.

What's ironic here is that the systems displayed in these books, points out out how the systems are oppressive to certain peoples. It's all peoples, actually, but everyone ignores the hurt that aren't themselves.

Everyone will only identify with their class, when push comes to shove. Everybody talks a good game about the poor, minorities, women's rights, but they don't give a fuk until they are directly affected.

i believe, rationally, that all life begins at conception; so, yes, i believe aborted or miscarried children should be treated with dignity and mourned accordingly

f and survival, on the other hand, believe, irrationally, that life begins at some ever-arbitrary point that is most convenient to them, and, accordingly, see no dignity in life at all

how about this, f, every person who believes abortion is a "right" should volunteer their own unborn offspring for incineration...we'll even send the "fuel" to third world countries to help boost their economies...we'll even reduce global warming by reducing the population

i'll also resubmit a previous offer: f, i'll let you waterboard me if you let me abort you...i'll even let you go first; afterwards we'll discuss the morality of each action; granted, you won't have much to say, but i'll help you prove your point by feeding your remains into the nearest incinerator

you don't know soylent green and claim i'm in a bubble? oh, the irony...

What a bunch of bullsh#t. I see plenty of dignity in life, but I see little dignity in a bunch of holier than thou men telling women what they can and can't do with their body. Especially when the aforementioned man has no answer to what to do with all these single mothers who had no honorable christian men to take care of these kids and what to do with all these children in poverty with no great Bookie to raise and pay for them.

The "case for killing granny" is meant to be a provocative discussion about end-of life treatment. Incidentally, wanting to reduce care for very sick elderly people used to be called euthanasia. The case for killing granny doesn't leave much room for discussion.

Already we are hearing, "there are just too many people, something should be done about it". Again, who decides, and by what criteria?

Personally/IMO, what say those calling for population reduction, be the ones setting an example, no?

That is COMPLETELY not the relevant point, and the "legislate morality," right wing of Christianity has done more damage to the cause of Christ than can POSSIBLY be expressed!

THE issue in the abortion debate is not when "life" begins. THE issue is when moral value begins, and that CLEARLY is not neatly mapped onto "life."

If I scratch my arm, I am INTENTIONALLY killing millions of LIVE cells. There they were, clinging to my arm just wanting nothing more than to LIVE, but I scraped them off with NO MOURNING nor consideration, and they just fall to floor and DIE. And all for a bit of my selfish convenience!

WHAT is the morally relevant difference between all of those cells I just killed and the single cell that is a fertilized human ovum?

What makes that one cell SO important to right-wing Christians, when you do not decry the MILLIONS of cells that we intentionally kill every time we scratch some spot on our bodies?

Until you can RIGOROUSLY answer such questions, you have NO basis upon which to formulate and enact laws on the subject. And by "rigorous," I do NOT mean quoting Scripture. You do NOT get to impose a purely Scripturally-based morality on this society. We enjoy a separation of (all) church and state. And, anyway, you don't HAVE good Scripturally-based arguments. I know and will be happy to debate you on that subject 'till the cows come home. ALL of the verses used to support the radical anti-abortion campaign are completely misinterpreted and can be trivially shown to be so.

So, do you care to rise to my challenge, or do you prefer to just "have" your opinion not based on anything solid, while spending your life imposing it on other people? You say, "i believe rationally," but, believe ME, your position is not derived RATIONALLY.

WHAT is the morally relevant difference between all of those cells I just killed and the single cell that is a fertilized human ovum?

Madbolter1 for the win.

Here is a summary of a very relevant chat I had with a friend. He is a PHD Microbiologist and Plant Pathologist.

We were walking in the desert and he commented on how insignificant human life is, compared to the history of life on Earth, and specifically as a "biomass".
I went for the bait and told him that indeed humans are special, because 500 acre mold colonies don't write symphonies or send spaceships to Mars.
He went into great depth explaining the concepts of life on Earth, and the importance of various "layers" of life.
Basically he boiled it down to human kind being very small, destructive, arrogant and wrong in the big picture of the universe.

But if you believe in the invisible sky-wizard creating the entire universe for us, then it's easy to create moral superiority.

But if you believe in the invisible sky-wizard creating the entire universe for us, then it's easy to create moral superiority.

Gotta be careful with that sort of argumentation, though, when arguing with the likes of a "legislate morality" Christian (LMC). If you can't draw a principled moral line between humans and other animals, then you throw the LMC a "rational" bone as he says, "See! You don't hold ANY human life as sacred! No wonder you aren't concerned about the MURDER of millions of innocent babies!"

The better tack is to AGREE that morally-relevant human beings are "sacred" and then proceed to explicate what makes ANY entity morally-relevant. AGREE (for the purposes of argument) with the moral objectivism of LMCs, but just show how misguided THEIR version of it really is.

It is thereby quickly easy to GUT their legislative arguments on a whole spectrum of social issues, ranging from gay marriage to abortion.

LOL... changing his mind will likely be, well, unlikely. But at least some on-the-fence thinkers might be swayed to realize how misguided is the whole LMC paradigm.

Seriously, I'm a Christian, but I DISPISE this LMC form of it (which has become mainstream Christianity)! Mainstream Christianity has become increasingly irrelevant and itself morally bankrupt. So it panders to LMC "morality" in desperate attempts to regain relevance and the "moral high ground." In so doing, it has destroyed the Republican party, alienated most people in this country, and, ironically, REMAINS increasingly irrelevant.

If Christians would be CHRISTIAN, and magnify individual freedom and education (rather than legislation), spending their time serving the poor and underprivileged, and living lives of self-sacrifice (instead of spending ANY time in LMC behaviors), Christianity might regain some relevancy in this society.

Oh, and being just a smidgen of "rational" would also help. But rationality seems to have largely departed from Christianity, to be replaced by pat-answers, smug-certainty, and dogma.

I believe bookworm has said that he is a high school science teacher. That or math teacher.

to me he is a troll. He wants no conversation. He just wants to irritate. Much like TGT. But conversation probably wouldn't matter because their beliefs are so ingrained that they can't see anything that lays outside of it. Plus there is an element of meanness to them that I don't respect at all. I would do away with their kind of troll if I could. What kind of person posts stuff to try and piss people off? And so that they can feel superior.. Dr. F has some of that element too, but he will at least talk to you.

Wow Mad, you write so much more,...ummm, Christian....than many we read/hear or are otherwise exposed to currently.

Thank you.

My problem is that I feel sort of split between two worlds. I am Christian, but I hate mainstream Christianity. I read Christianity Today each month, and mostly I finish each issue discouraged and thinking, "So confused."

I have served in very high ranking positions in two different global denominations, most recently as the Executive Director of one. Yet I resigned when the board (illegally) decided to protect a former board member who, now as a local pastor, basically ripped off the organization for almost half-a-million dollars, lied about it (of course), and then instructed me to do nothing about it. My lawyer informed me that to do nothing would be a violation of my own legally-mandated fiduciary duties and that I had best resign, which I did. I relate this to say that I have seen the sickness in Christianity first-hand and at a level that few ever do. And I am sickened by it!

Then, when you consider the damage done politically....

Palin is the best LMCs can do, and LMCs LOVE her! And the primary system ensures that ONLY someone claiming to BE an LMC can get the Republican nomination. But such an individual is not mainstream-electable, so the nominee then spends all the time between the primary and the general election trying to undo the image they created to get the nomination in the first place!

Here's another example. Kerry would have almost certainly been a better president than Bush (well, a chimp would have been better). However, in one of the last debates, he was asked from the floor of the audience what his stand on abortion was: "Senator Kerry, you are a staunch Catholic, yet you have publicly said that you support Roe vs. Wade. How can you reconcile those positions?"

Kerry responded with one of the most sensible and nuanced statements on the subject I have EVER heard from a Christian: "Yes, I am a staunch Catholic. But in this country we value a separation between church and state, and we don't impose any sectarian 'morality' on the public via legislation. So, I am personally opposed to abortion, but in my public role as President I would not legislate against it, because I believe that the arguments against it are specifically Judeo-Christian, and we don't base our laws on such positions."

I watched that debate and went, "WOW! If I had NO other reason for voting for Kerry, that just sealed the deal." But the next day the Seattle Times (typically liberal-democrat) ran a front-page article, the headline of which read: "Kerry Waffles on Abortion." And the rest is history.

Now we have the Patriot Act, INSANE levels of spending started by Bush and blithely continued by Obama, invasions into our personal lives that we could not have imagined just a decade ago, and the litany goes on and on!

And rather than being a SANE, moderate voice in all of this, LMCs have become increasingly shrill, entrenched, and CAUSING yet more problems (as I've just scratched the surface of).

If Christianity would get off of this LMC kick, it could be a valuable and even credible contributor to the public dialog. But as it stand now (and is ever increasing), ALL we get is sickness, dogma, and Palins.

Well, that's a profoundly contentious claim. Indeed, it's one way of stating THE contentious claim.

So, do you just "know" this somehow, or do you have actual reasons for thinking that your claim is true?

Would you care to enlighten those of us that have not yet tumbled to the reasons? And I'm not asking for "empirical evidence," as that itself might well "load the game," so to speak. I'm asking for ANY evidence! Care to quote Scripture, for example?

I'm sincerely curious how it is that SO many are SO confident in that claim, but they are also SO slow to offer actual reasoning to sustain it.

I'll even load the game ENTIRELY in your favor and grant what is likely your base premise that the Bible is THE authoritative basis for moral facts.

Even then, with the game SO loaded in your favor (or load it however you please; I'm game), PLEASE explain how you get from "there" to the truth of your claim.

If we could even get clear about THIS, it just might be possible to have a gap-bridging discussion.

MB, let's start with my thought that all living beings in the fish/animal world have souls. That does not mean they are all 'good' souls. Some have grown rotten, despite always starting pure and innocent.

I have no proof of the presence of a soul. The only thing I have is that all life is born in innocence. As we wander through life, our soul either expands (good) or retracts (evil).

This can be evidenced by the nature of certain people. Some are inherently good inside, others can be the most rotten SOBs you've ever met. I think this is the soul on display, not just 'personality' or 'mental state'.

Once a baby starts to form in the womb, it moves and recent scans of babies in the womb clearly show interaction with Mom and emotions. They have a soul at that point IMO.

But when did they acquire that soul? I would gather that it happens at conception, or very, very soon thereafter.

Thank you for your answer, Bluering. I'm not sure I understand your perspective yet, though. Given your perspective of souls, it seems that more is included than excluded, so I'd like to hear your exclusions.

For example, does a single skin cell have a soul? I'm NOT being specious with this question. If all living things have souls, then which among living things do not have a soul? How would lines be drawn between soul-things and non-soul-things?

Thank you in advance! And, yes, booky has a mountain to climb to "defend" his/herself.

MB, A single cell organism would not have a soul. It's a cell, not a 'being'.

Only when a life is created, is a soul produced to represent that life.

Thank you again for your clarification, Bluering! Much appreciated.

Would you mind more clarification? I ask because I'm still not seeing the connection between your "inhuman" comment upthread and this further clarification on your part.

LMCs insist that the "person" exists at the moment of conception. They, of course, draw "the line" here in order to avoid paradoxes of ambiguity. However, your account thus far seems ripe for application of such paradoxes.

For example, if a single cell has no soul, then at the moment of conception a fertilized cell has no soul. If the cell divides (in the first step on its path toward becoming a full-blown "person" with a full-blown soul) does it then have a soul?

If you say "no, not yet," then one wonders how many cells it takes to achieve "soul status." If you say "yes, it is now multicelled," then one wonders why there is a sudden and qualitative distinction that occurs between one and "at least two" cells.

If you claim that somewhere between two and "many" cells the "soul status" is achieved, then you are solidly in paradox of ambiguity terrain, and any "resolution" of that paradox will be arbitrary (and hence, not really sustaining your "inhuman" accusation).

Furthermore, at first you seemed to conflate "alive" with "having a soul," but you most recently seem to distinguish between these statuses. But your present distinction still seems murky to me, because, as I say above, I'm not clear exactly WHAT features of an entity give it "soul status," and I'm confident that you don't think it is entirely a numerical (number of cells) metric!

I hope my line of questioning is clear. I'm just not sure what, on your view, gets a fetus any particular moral status and how that status is attained when the fertilized cell doesn't have it but somewhere along the development the fetus does have it.

In short, what are the morally-relevant features of a fetus that give it "soul status?"

"So bookworm. What's your story? Were you unable to get pregnant? If you are male were you unable to get a woman pregnant?"

don't understand the relevance...so only women who are or have been pregnant are permitted an opinion on abortion? are you unable to have sex or were you absent the day they explained both male and female contributions are necessary for pregnancy? do you not understand that 50% of unborn babies are male? are you not aware the majority of abortions around the world kill female babies? why does your concern for women begin only post-partum?

biologically, scientifically, rationally life begins at conception...the soul is not relevant to the argument;i want to save the atheist unborn as much as the faithful unborn and give them all a chance to CHOOSE for themselves

if a woman wants to be pregnant, then she carries a baby (at whatever stage) and a miscarriage (i.e. the body naturally terminating the pregnancy) is tragic...if a woman does not want to be pregnant, then she carries a clump of cells/tissue (at whatever stage) and an abortion (i.e. another person intentionally and unnaturally terminating the pregnancy) is a "right"...please, explain, sully

"More significantly, why pose as an English teacher? You quote my Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, out of context. Plus, you hold up the most anti-female dystopian classic to push a women's issue. Good thinking, maestra."

if you actually read shakespeare (rather than just mouthing the words) you would understand the context is appropriate...miranda comments on a group of men she sees for the first time, men we know to be corrupt--these are the same men who abandoned her father, with an infant daughter (oh, maybe a 3-year-old doesn't count as a human, either...), on an island, presumably, to die--her praise of these men is ironic (which, i'm sure, you recongnize since your "bible" is full of examples)

the key, which you miss (not surprisingly), is prospero's response...he recognizes there is nothing "new" about miranda's world, on or off the island; such corruption always has and always will exist and, most often, in beauteous form...he understands his life as duke (and his daughter's life) back in milan will still be fraught with peril

"I'm sure you agree that John the Savage is one crappy Christ figure. How was the brave new world any better after his suicide?"

honestly, it's just such comments that explain why i'm a teacher (and why my job is so often depressing)

of course, john is a failed christ figure...first, he's john NOT jesus; he's either the baptist or the apostle in need of the christ to teach him the truth...shakespeare is a great source for moral teaching, but the morality is incomprehensible without a strong biblical foundation; shakespeare and john's innate morality can take him only so far (like dante's guide; virgil--symbolically, human reason--can take us only as far as earthly paradise; only the love of god can take us to heaven)

the point is, sully, the world is not brave or new; huxley is simply illustrating his own world carried to the extreme (hence, the astute and contextually appropriate allusion)

the point is, sully, this world is NOT "better" after john's suicide; the world is worse because the last good chance the world had to redeem itself is dead, killed by the world he might have saved...sound familiar? that's actually from the real bible

when i started my career 20 years ago, the majority of my students (including a majority of jews, muslims, hindus, buddhists, atheists, etc.) knew the story of jesus and its implications; they didn't believe it, but they understood it...sadly, the opposite is now true...i even have catholic students who don't understand the sacraments and the non-christians have no knowledge/appreciation of the bible at all...but they have an excuse--they're kids

Man, it's almost as if you think morality is some sort of philosophical framework which seeks to increase happiness and mitigate suffering, based on objective truths about sentience, psychology, and the natural world.

But we all know morality is just doing what he bible says you should do.

Like if you strike a pregnant woman and cause her to have a miscarriage, then you should pay a fine to the husband for the loss of property. The problem is all these women are going around getting abortions and the husbands aren't getting their dues!

"So worried about the un-born but can't be bothered to care for the living."

i do care about the living; i don't think the innocent living should be killed, either

"THE point that you seem to be missing is that "life" is not the morally-relevant consideration in this debate, because mere "life" fails to explicate any morally-relevant distinction."

my fault, i assumed everyone understood we're discussing HUMAN LIFE

if there is no argument about when life begins, then what "metric" do you use to determine how long after life begins it's acceptable/moral to terminate life? explain the moral distinction between 6 weeks, 16 weeks, 26 weeks, and 36 weeks...if you agree life begins at conception, explain the moral distinction between in utero and out

"Women have "had" and "created" abortions since almost forever. Abortions will continue to happen, whether they are legal or not."

by that reasoning, you believe we have a "right" to murder, too

"I do not think women should be forced to carry and give birth to unwanted children.

I do not think women should be forced to have illegal, unsanitary and dangerous abortions.

I do not think women should be made into criminals for having illegal abortions."

neither do i; the ONLY difference in our understanding of the issue is that i believe women should make these decisions BEFORE they have sex and not after

crazy me, i think people should be responsible for their actions; you don't want kids, don't have sex...we're humans, not animals; we can choose to have sex or not; we can comprehend the consequences of our actions; we can live our lives fully, which includes the painful (or inconvenient) as well as the joyful, or we can abdicate our dignity and subjugate ourselves entirely to our passions and hope for someone else to clean up our messes

Furthermore, at first you seemed to conflate "alive" with "having a soul," but you most recently seem to distinguish between these statuses. But your present distinction still seems murky to me, because, as I say above, I'm not clear exactly WHAT features of an entity give it "soul status," and I'm confident that you don't think it is entirely a numerical (number of cells) metric!

I hope my line of questioning is clear. I'm just not sure what, on your view, gets a fetus any particular moral status and how that status is attained when the fertilized cell doesn't have it but somewhere along the development the fetus does have it.

In short, what are the morally-relevant features of a fetus that give it "soul status?"

When a conception takes place, I believe a soul is created that strives to grow. It's quite the magical process. The moral status is derived from the potential of that initiated process. That will become a person. As such, it should be treated as one.

Just because it hasn't left the women, doesn't mean it should not have a moral value.

Yes I do regard human life as sacred, more sacred than animal life. I assume it is a tribal loyalty as much as anything as all evidence shows many animal life forms have all the emotional and possibly spiritual qualities that we do. Either way, this sacred thing ain't as simple a rule book as it seems.

I'm think it's related to the degree of intelligence that I also have sympathy for animals. They can sense and anticipate pain and suffering because they have greater intelligence, larger souls, and more feeling. I'm speaking specifically of elephants and dolphins. Two of the smarter species in the animal world. They indeed have hearty souls.

Intelligence should not be a guage for sympathy though, it's just those species display their regret more than others.

Yes I do regard human life as sacred, more sacred than animal life. I assume it is a tribal loyalty as much as anything as all evidence shows many animal life forms have all the emotional and possibly spiritual qualities that we do. Either way, this sacred thing ain't as simple a rule book as it seems.

Yes I know it is to you but you can have it and have a good time. Just don't foist you ancient rules of ancient date on the rest of us. Neither yours nor our society is a theocracy.

I wonder if you'd tell a native American the same thing as we plowed over their burial-sites to make room for a project, or if the gov't seized their land in an eminent-domain fashion. Native American=sacred, Christian=go f*#k yerself.

Just curious, about the burning feotuses.... would you not be so disgusted if there was a sacred ceremony to send them off in dignity? Is that your hang up?

That would be a good step. I say a prayer for dead road-kill as I pass them. The little dead babies deserve the same. At least!

We don't do farewell ceremonies for old livers, apparently not feotuses either, but at some point we decide they are people then it gets pretty sacred.

You obviously think a fetus is nothing more than dead tissue. Yeah, I understand that. Never had a soul, like a "liver".

Its a fair argument as to when but only you religious guys seem to want to determine it by magic. For some reason you also only focus on one interesting but unsubstantiated idea (the soul ) while ignoring completely the well substantiated realities of the unquestionably living moral beings already here.

So, your ticket to individual rights is making it out of the vagina? That's when we start to care?

Maybe the problem wouldn't be such a problem if pregnancy did not equal a spiral of poverty and state / church enforced spiritual dysfunction, like having Bookworm learing down at you from his pulpit.

Yeah, saving babies from death should only be a religious issue, not moral. If a mother CHOSE to execute her child after birth because she just waited a bit to long to make her CHOICE, would that be cool? She just was making her pro-choice decision afterall.

Billions of small plants, trees, fish, and super cute mammals, all because we're so superior. Humans are "special" and God says in this book here that he made them all for us to dispose of as we see fit. Hold it, you say there's more than one set of holy books?

But wait, that's not all, we kill massive numbers of HUMANS everyday too. Our government, your government, other peoples governments are all doing it, for sometimes less than glorious reasons.

And then we have our sacred right to keep and bear arms, so we can whack each other for every conceivable reason.

Here's the truth. Legal, safe, sanitary abortion and a woman's right to choose is the LAW OF THE LAND. A decision argued by some incredibly smart people, and decided on by the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States. You do believe in America don't you book?

Sorry book, but you don't get to call this one. Don't like abortion? Don't have one. Keep your holy flippers off of women's right to choose.

Yup, Bruce, you've just NAILED what I cannot stand about my "fellow" Christians.

The pompous dogmatism, especially when it is neither theologically nor philosophically sound, but it is trotted out as GOSPEL, is just disgusting and is a mark of shame to the actual cause of Christ.

Bookie dances all around the questions without even seeing that he/she is really providing NO answers at all. He/she thinks that further CLAIMS constitute answers. He/she thinks that by "turning the tables" and asking his/her own questions, he/she can DODGE the fact that he/she has no answers.

And Bluering's "soul" bit is no more credible than me claiming that everything in the universe is doubling in size once each second. I can CLAIM it all I want; but there is not a SHRED of evidence to think the claim is true. Worse, it is equivalent to the claim that everything is tripling in size every second. Or quadrupling. NO evidence can distinguish between these claims, and there is NO reason to think that any of them are true. Such is Bluering's "soul" business. And he offers no good reasons to distinguish between HUMAN skin cells and HUMAN fertilized eggs. Both are HUMAN cells and are fully and genetically human.

People like this "just believe," and they just don't EVER stop to reassess how they CAME to believe what they believe. They just KNOW, but what they "know" is like my claims about doubling, tripling, etc.

THAT would be bad enough, as Clifford says, such beliefs held on the basis of NO evidence actually degrade all of society!

But when they try to ENFORCE their "morality" on others, they have crossed a line that, fortunately, THIS society disallows them to cross. When they become rabid and wholly dogmatic and try to LEGISLATE their version of "morality," they go FAR beyond the pale and should be SMACKED down with counter-legislation!

There is no reason (Biblically or philosophically) to believe that a fertilized human egg has a soul. There is NO reason to afford it any special status.

And the "potential" argument Bluering floats is entirely specious.

I have the potential to be a president of the United States; but I don't get afforded that status until I AM! Mere potential does not afford actual status, and that is true also in the moral realm.

The ONLY response that has been floated to that response to the "potential" argument is something like: "But in the normal, natural course of events, these 'potential' people usually become people."

FALSE, both empirically and by force of reason alone.

We literally do not know what the proportion is of fertilizations that result in live births compared to symptomless miscarriages. But we have evidence that the rate is very high!

"Among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15-20%." (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001488.htm); And it is impossible in principle to know the miscarriage rate among women who did not know they were pregnant. By definition, they did not know, so they did not know that they miscarried instead of having a normal period. So, it is likely that the actual miscarriage rate (and this is in modern, developed societies!) is likely 50% or more. A LOT of sex, and a LOT of fertilization is happening; and there are not THAT many live births.

It's pretty hard to float the "potential" argument when, even in a modern, healthy society, it's at best a CRAPSHOOT if any given pregnancy comes to term and results in a live birth! The empirical evidence just doesn't support the claim that "in most cases" or "in the normal course of events" pregnancies produce live human babies. In FACT, it's probably more like a 50/50 shot, or even worse. So, what IS this supposed "normal course of events" that supposedly grounds the "potential" argument?

Furthermore, even if the empirical evidence supported the claim about the "normal course of events," the fact remains that for any PARTICULAR fetus (that supposedly has 'gotten hold of a soul'), that PARTICULAR soul might not to see the light of day!

So, the "potential" argument suffers badly from the fallacy of accident. Even IF (which is NOT the case) "the normal course of events" did "typically" produce a live birth, there is NO reason to think that ANY PARTICULAR fetus is going to "follow the rule." So, we WAIT to see if any PARTICULAR fetus DOES "follow the rule," and we acknowledge the human rights of those that DO. And we do NOT acknowledge such rights for all of the POTENTIAL MISCARRIAGES that do NOT!

An early term "abortion" is nothing but actualizing the POTENTIAL of that particular fetus to miscarry. So, notice how the "potential" sword cuts both ways! Any given fetus has the potential BOTH to become a full-blown person AND to become a wasting pile of useless jelly.

So, the "potential" argument fails to explicate.

Finally, in Judith Jarvis Thompson's seminal book, The Realm of Rights, she offers absolutely DEVASTATING arguments that MAKE the case that even if a fetus HAS ALL HUMAN RIGHTS, that STILL does not get you an anti-abortion case! I particularly recommend her famous thought experiments regarding the "plugged in violinist" and the "seeds."

These arguments and thought experiments MAKE that case that a woman's ACTUAL rights must ALWAYS trump even the PRESUMED rights of the fetus. And that is giving the fetus its best case, when in point of fact, there are not good reasons to PRESUME that a fetus DOES have any rights.

So, to sum up:

* The "potential" argument is a dismal failure because it is not empirically supported, AND it is not reasonable for various reasons including that it fallacious and is a two-edged sword.

* There is no Biblical or philosophical evidence to sustain the idea that a fetus is a person or has a soul.

* Even IF a fetus were afforded full human rights, that STILL does not make a sound anti-abortion case.

Christians would overnight enjoy a LOT more intellectual credibility if they would publicly acknowledge what a ridiculous hobby-horse they have been riding on this subject, BACK OFF of it, and turn their attention to actually productive education, acts of charity and mercy, and engage in the ACTUAL cause of Christ. Imagine taking the money Christians have spent opposing abortion and spending it on education and acts of mercy.

Bookie suggests that for my arguments the line of "birth" is entirely arbitrary. He/she suggests that by my lights there is no particular reason to afford a newborn any human rights. And the idea is that it is obviously monstrous to kill off unwanted newborns; thus it is equally monstrous to kill off the unborn; the "line" being entirely arbitrary.

But the "line" of birth is FAR from arbitrary. In fact it is a very clear, bright line that perfectly correlates with Thompson's arguments about the often conflicting rights (presuming that fetuses have rights) between a woman and a fetus.

Here is the line: viability.

While the fetus is entirely, completely dependent upon the woman for its very existence, it is NOT an independent entity. It is literally a part of the woman.

However, at the point of viability (which modern medical practices keep pushing further and further back from the typical 9 months), the fetus CAN be considered an independent entity. It can be "detached" from the woman and still live and develop independently.

So there is nothing arbitrary about calling a non-viable fetus a part of a woman, giving her as much discretion over it as she has over any other part of her body. And there is nothing arbitrary about calling a viable fetus (or, more commonly, a born fetus) a "baby" and treating it as an independent entity.

Even that doesn't get you "soul" or anything of the kind. And "personhood" scales with development.

Already in this society we put a LOT of weight on the "potential" argument when it comes to BORN babies. They might not ever grow up to become full-blown persons. But we treat them as though they WILL. And these are certainly independent entities that have "beaten the odds" to become independent entities.

But the "potential" argument is put to its last trumps to get pushed further and further back into the development cycle of a fetus! By the time it is pushed back to the single fertilized cell, it has become entirely absurd, as I argued in my previous post.

Nope, there is a clear, bright line at viability; and we already put enough weight on the "potential" argument to grant full human rights to these independent entities at the point of birth (by whatever means they get "born").

When they are not even independent entities, we simply don't accept the "potential" argument. Instead, we rightly wait and see. Meanwhile, the WOMAN'S rights absolutely trump even the "potential" rights of a fetus.

"Bookie dances all around the questions without even seeing that he/she is really providing NO answers at all. He/she thinks that further CLAIMS constitute answers. He/she thinks that by "turning the tables" and asking his/her own questions, he/she can DODGE the fact that he/she has no answers."

please, repeat the questions i have not answered

here's one you did not answer: if the fertilized egg is a life (which, again, has been conceded on this thread) then why is it acceptable for a woman to END THE LIFE that is simply the NATURAL, and entirely predictable, result of a decision she willingly made?

please, provide a quote in which i promoted celibacy or any other form of asceticism; because i do not share your celebration of sexual debauchery (whatever, whenever, however, with whomever) does not mean i'm opposed to sex or even sex for pleasure; that's your entirely bigoted and ignorant interpretation of my straightforward comments--this is sully's problem with shakespeare; he reads the words but ignores what they actually mean preferring instead his own beliefs; i bet he thinks he's really clever when he teaches his students that shakespeare was a great feminist writer--i've never said you should stop having sex; i simply believe you should accept responsibility for your decisions...the horror, the horror

"dingus isn't mean enough"

when have i called anyone a "fuked up pathological whack job", or any other name? that's a liberal tactic and proof of the absence of rational argument

"bookworm and his Klan"

ah, the racism card has been played...how predictable, even in a discussion that has nothing to do with race and directed toward somebody who has made no comments about race

"drop it with the bigotry crap"

you're the one who assumed by arguments are religiously based...ever heard of hippocrates...he developed an oath for doctors long before anyone had heard of jesus...take a look at #4:

"I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion"

so, even if the fetus is a life, it does not necessarily have rights...hmmm, where have i heard that reasoning before? some lives are more equal than others...stephen hawking is entirely dependent on others to remain "viable"--i guess he doesn't have any rights either...margaret sanger must be square dancing in her grave

by the way, what is scientific about rights, anyway? let me guess, you think the government gives us our rights (including the right to life)...what Gov giveth, Gov can taketh away

LOL.... My favorite professor as an undergrad had a mantra: "There is no good writing. There is only good rewriting." Sadly, my first-pass posts here lack the elegance that I might manage with rewriting. Sorry to foist off on you only first-pass stuff; all I have time for.

Well, for one, let's bring in your next point, which will provide the springboard from which I can remind you.

if the fertilized egg is a life (which, again, has been conceded on this thread) then why is it acceptable for a woman to END THE LIFE that is simply the NATURAL, and entirely predictable, result of a decision she willingly made?

Okay, the primary question I asked you, which you have not yet answered, is the same one that instantly emerges from your "point" just stated: "Given that there is no debate about the fetus being a "life," and there is no debate about a skin cell being a "life," HOW do you claim a fetus has certain "rights" that you do not agree a skin cell has?

THAT is the issue here. The issue is not "life" per se, as there are all sorts of cells and even entire species that you would not hold in any special regard. However, let this ONE CELL get fertilized inside a woman, and suddenly (still waiting to hear how), THAT ONE CELL has all sorts of "rights" that none of these other "lives" seemingly have!

Amazing!

I'll ask again: HOW do these rights suddenly obtain? WHAT are the morally-relevant metrics by which this is determined? And THESE questions are the ones that you PRESUME have good answers, although you have never shared these answers with us!

Now, to answer YOUR question (again):

There is NO problem in principle with "ending a life." We end ALL SORTS of "lives" in all sorts of contexts. So, I have no special burden of proof to explain this or that particular ending of a life. YOU are the one that says that this PARTICULAR sort of cell enjoys special privileges not enjoyed by ANY other single cell on Earth. So, my answer is to say, "I don't buy it. The burden of proof is on YOU to explain what the nature of this 'specialness' IS and how it obtains."

Please proceed to do so.

i simply believe you should accept responsibility for your decisions...the horror, the horror

I agree, and more than you realize, given that you don't know me nor have you followed my many (and usually very non-concise) posts on Libertarianism. But I don't see how YOU get from the laudable principle of personal responsibility to the claim that abortion is wrong.

so, even if the fetus is a life, it does not necessarily have rights...hmmm, where have i heard that reasoning before? some lives are more equal than others...stephen hawking is entirely dependent on others to remain "viable"--i guess he doesn't have any rights either...margaret sanger must be square dancing in her grave

Wow... I'm stunned by the conflations here. "Some lives are more equal than others?" Uhhh... YEAH! Among the many "lives" that populate planet Earth, we certainly DO think that, for examples, amoebas are FAR less "equal" than, say, WE are.

But you don't mean THAT by "lives," do you? No, because you are SMUGGLING in the point you presume but have not demonstrated, namely that the FETUS is a "special life," while the amoeba is not. But THAT is the very point under contention. So, again (and again), the burden of proof is on YOU to explain HOW and by what metrics that ONE CELL that matters so much to YOU is somehow different in principle from an amoeba.

If you say, "But, but... it's HUMAN! Duh!" I will respond: so are the many skin cells that I intentionally "murder" every day. What makes a fertilized ovum SO dang special and nothing at all like THOSE human cells?

I'm sure that YOU are in shock and horror at the thought that such a question could seriously be raised. But people on your side of the debate NEED to stop PRESUMING that your intuitions are right, such that ALL you can do is respond with shock and horror at people that don't share your intuitions. Again, YOU just "know" something, and you can't imagine how what you "know" isn't universally known. But it is NOT universally known. So buck up and start producing some EVIDENCE to support your position: empirical, reasoned, or (as I said above) even Scriptural.

I put it to you that you have NONE of the above. You have ONLY your intuitions, and they are NOT widely shared in this present society.

by the way, what is scientific about rights, anyway? let me guess, you think the government gives us our rights (including the right to life)...what Gov giveth, Gov can taketh away

Oh, the irony!

As others on this thread can tell you, I am well known in the various politard threads for my "originalist" constitutional perspective, my libertarian political philosophy, and my natural rights perspective of distinguishing between negative and positive rights.

I am about as FAR from your accusation of believing that the government grants rights as I could possibly be!

YOUR problem in arguing with me is that I am quick to see how you smuggle in your question-begging presumptions. So, to help you out a bit, you should know what you are up against, so that you don't keep accusing me of literally the opposite perspectives from the ones I have.

I have a Ph.D. in analytical philosophy from UC Santa Barbara. My areas of specialization (and in which I have primary taught and written) are in ethics and political philosophy. I mentioned above what my political perspectives are. And my ethical perspectives are that I am an objectivist and absolutist about the metaphysics of moral facts. Technically, that makes me a moral realist.

So you are not dealing with just some clueless yahoo here that has some undeveloped and fluffy notion of ethics and just some undifferentiated and thoughtless "failure" to share your intuitions on the subject of abortion.

YOU have a big problem on this subject, and that problem is that apparently nobody has ever really PUSHED you on this subject before. You are used to getting onto venues like this and manhandling the subject; but that approach will not fly here.

As I said, you need to BUCK UP and provide evidence to sustain your intuitions. IF you could do that, you might just sway some minds. But so far, you have dismally failed to do so.

Okay, the primary question I asked you, which you have not yet answered, is the same one that instantly emerges from your "point" just stated: "Given that there is no debate about the fetus being a "life," and there is no debate about a skin cell being a "life," HOW do you claim a fetus has certain "rights" that you do not agree a skin cell has?

THAT is the issue here. The issue is not "life" per se, as there are all sorts of cells and even entire species that you would not hold in any special regard. However, let this ONE CELL get fertilized inside a woman, and suddenly (still waiting to hear how), THAT ONE CELL has all sorts of "rights" that none of these other "lives" seemingly have!

I thought I answered this. One has a soul, and one does not.

I find you annoying. Why do constantly bring up your educational background? Do you find that this makes you feel superior?

Hint - it makes you appear arrogant and less legit.

EDIT:

There is NO problem in principle with "ending a life." We end ALL SORTS of "lives" in all sorts of contexts. So, I have no special burden of proof to explain this or that particular ending of a life. YOU are the one that says that this PARTICULAR sort of cell enjoys special privileges not enjoyed by ANY other single cell on Earth. So, my answer is to say, "I don't buy it. The burden of proof is on YOU to explain what the nature of this 'specialness' IS and how it obtains."

A baby is the epitomy of innocent life. It should be guarded carefully.

A criminal or terrorist is the epitomy of criminality and should be dealt with as such.

2) If this sort of doubling is going on, then we simply MUST have laws in place to prevent the rich people from EVER doubling their wealth!

------

3) So, we MUST have laws in place to prevent the rich people from EVER doubling their wealth.

You argue using talk of souls like I argue using size-doubling.

You argue from vague claims about fetal "rights" like I argue from vague claims about the "rich."

Your attempt to move from such claims to assertions about public policy is like my attempt to move from such claims to assertions about public policy.

Your ongoing attempts to violate the actual rights of real people is akin to my argument's assertion that we must violate the actual rights of real people.

So, either explicate this "soul" and "baby" business, or admit that you have only vacuous claims to offer in "support" of your attempts to take over female reproductive rights.

I find you annoying.

Increasingly: Ditto!

And so what?

Why do constantly bring up your educational background? Do you find that this makes you feel superior?

I wouldn't say that "constantly" is legitimate. If you look at the actual context, you'll see that it was appropriate in responding to the so-called "bookworm" (who quite apparently isn't).

"Superior?" Don't know what you mean. I would say: more studied on this subject. Absolutely yes. You and bookie quite clearly are not. And you SHOULD be before you try to pontificate AS THOUGH you actually do know what you are talking about. Unlike you, I actually do.

Hint - it makes you appear arrogant and less legit.

Oh well.

You appear "less legit" because you simply cannot produce a shred of evidence to sustain your oft-repeated and question-begging claims.

A baby is the epitomy of innocent life. It should be guarded carefully.

So you SAY. But the real question is: What entitles you to call a single, fertilized cell a "baby?" When you can (perhaps, finally) answer that simple question, we might be able to continue a discussion. But your endless repetition of your "soul" bit is NOT an explanation; it is merely another CLAIM that you offer zero support for.

A criminal or terrorist is the epitomy of criminality and should be dealt with as such.

Again, so you SAY. I don't get where this non-sequitur is supposed to fit in.

One is guilty, and one is innocent.

Wow... SO many problems with that statement that I'm groping for where to start!

Okay, how about here? You've started with a useless tautology: "One is guilty," referencing a criminal. Yessss... by definition a criminal is "guilty," so what's the point of this statement? What actual informational content are you conveying?

And you seem to mean something by "guilty" that would itself be contentious, as I think you are smuggling in moral guilt rather than just legal guilt. At least that wouldn't be tautological. Sigh.

Next is your question-begging. "One is innocent" would be better stated as: "One is nothing at all" in a moral or legal sense. YOU have never established otherwise.

Again, the burden of proof is on YOU to explain why a single, fertilized cell is anything different from a skin cell. And your endless appeal to "soul" is just in need of its own explanation, which you never provide.

I could just as well ask it this way: WHAT leads you to think that a skin cell has no soul?

But, I predict that your "answer" to that question would just lead back into the small-circle that you call "reasoning."

When I first started discussing this with you, I had the sense that you were honestly trying to think this through. Now it seems instead that you are simply dogmatic and/or literally do not understand the nature of the vast shortcomings in your "explanations."

If that statement itself sounds "arrogant," so be it. I really don't care about your slippage into personality-talk. All I care about are truth-claims and the truth-conditions that would render them true. So far, you are offering neither.

Normally, like many threads in which I've taken a stab, I would just let this go as not worth the time and effort. But the problem here is that people like you are SERIOUSLY and continuously trying to establish public policy that would horrendously violate the KNOWN rights of real women. I'll fight that to the ends of the earth. If a philosopher and ethicist has any remaining value in the world, surely it would be in such a fight.

And if YOU intend to fight your fight for the "rights" of the "unborn," then you'll have to do a MUCH better job of explicating some very basic concepts your perspective depends upon. So far, you are quite obviously (to any unbiased mind) flailing!

John M wrote:
basically Reilly, I can't have an opinion on anything that happens to a woman because I'm a swinging sausage and have never experienced what they go through. So I have no f*#king say over whether a child is born or not. Since I am a male who found out later I had a child, but that child was aborted. I just have no say and she doesn't give a sh#t. Thats f*#ked up. Women want respect. Then they have to also offer it.

I don't know if he had created a fictitious event or not, but I'll respond to his scenario. If you claim to be in a relationship with a woman that would convey an equal say in the outcome of a sexual encounter, it is hard to understand how you might have not been involved in the decision. On the other hand, if that "relationship" was defined only by the sex it is not surprising at all. Respect is mutual, as you point out, and if you do not respect the fuller responsibility of the act then you might not be a part of the decisions regarding the outcome.

You might also not be deemed trustworthy in terms of the 18 year commitment raising a child to adulthood conveys. All a hypothetical discussion, of course. After all, commitment is best demonstrated by actions, and one's actions can often be contrary to one's talk... if there is any talk at all.

As for the question, "what does science have to do with it?" as far as the morality of abortion, one might look at the "natural history" of human reproduction for at least a baseline of what to expect in a "normal" pregnancy.

This is not to demean the feelings of the "sanctity" of a person, or the potential represented by every conception. However, the most likely outcome of a conception is miscarriage, also referred to as "spontaneous abortion." And it is not uncommon among animals whose reproduction includes similar pregnancies. Humans are not exceptional in this regard, the biology of reproduction is shared across species.

And while I don't think it is necessary to have a religious or philosophical answer to the question: "why is spontaneous abortion so common?" it would seem to be a legitimate question in the context of these debates. Not to make too fine a point of it, one could make the case that "nature" is the largest "abortionist" (using the contemporary rhetoric). Why would that be so?

I fully recognize the complexity of the issues regarding individual liberty. Here the liberty of the mother is balanced against the liberty of the potential person. "Viability" seems to be the current boundary, if there is a societal interest, it cannot extend to the time before the "potentiality" of the person is real, that is, a viable life independent of the mother. The above statistics indicated that independent of the mother's intent, most of the conceptions do not result in persons. Does this mean that society should pursue a program of decreasing the rate of spontaneous abortions to zero in order to assure the liberty of a "potential person"? How that question is answered has to be relevant to this discussion. Taken to its extreme are all gametes subject to protection because they all have the potential to create a person? Should all mothers be provided with free health care, and supported throughout their pregnancy to bring it to a successful conclusion by the society that expresses the interest in that outcome? If society isn't going to do it, does it have any weight in the decision?

It is a complexity that does not spare the woman who must make the decision, either, though that voice is often drowned out in the debate. It is certainly an important voice to hear. My limited experience discussing this decision with women who are confronted with it has me conclude that it is an extremely difficult one, made with all the consequences understood, including the uncertainties related to the "potential person," and the commitment being a mother implies. In a strong relationship, the input of both partners in the decision is common. None of the decisions are easy to make, and "society" is fully represented in the manner of expected behaviors, cultural, philosophical and religious views, and an awareness of the immensity of the decision.

Reducing the discussion, as this thread does, to what are essentially trite one liners with out-of-context supporting evidence from rather dubious reporting in the press offends me (but I'll get over it). In particular, to politicize the issue for the purpose of defining voting demographics seems a horrific perversion of democracy. But such is our times.

Bottom line, science tells us that "spontaneous abortion" is not at all rare, it is actually common.

no doubt, but the entire human species has depended on the ability to assess the consequences of having sex. And rather sophisticated behavior has evolved even though individuals may not have been "intellectually engaged" in the process (the wonders of evolution, this extends farther back than the human species).

You talk of "love", what's love go to do with it? Even before the concept of love there was reproduction... or not, depending on the consequences.

There is no reason to assume that those assessments were not fully considered in the scenario you have outlined even if neither of the parties were aware of it intellectually.

The consequences of sex are not the same for the male and the female (independent of the species). I don't see your argument for the idea that the decision should include equal weights from male and female participants. It has never been that way in natural history.

This thread illustrates nicely how women are not equal to men or even close, really

Equal as in = or the same as, not as far as I can tell.

More like a+b+c equals d+e+f if you know what I mean

The older I get, the more I see and experience the clearer this becomes

Women that clamor for equal treatment rarely want to sacrifice or even acknowledge the built in advantages they have as women.

Men are in control where legislation is concerned, at least on the floor in Washington, and the debate over what women do with their bodies is unfairly in their man hands, but rest assured girls, behind all those great men is a woman pulling the strings to one degree or another.

In some crazy overall way it becomes close to equality, IMH, albeit male, opinion.

Anyway Bruce and mad bolter articulated some outstanding opinions that seem to favor women's rights at their core, but somehow their aggressive stance seems to incite some female wrath over control issues at the same time.

From where I sit (with sausage twixt legs) I see their taking control of the debate here as a service to womankind.

John M. you seem to have taken this very personally... which is one way of generating passion, but that can get in the way of seeing the larger issue.

If you want to make it a matter of personal responsibility, you had the opportunity to express that when you had sex, apparently in a manner that might lead to conception and pregnancy. Are you saying you had no responsibility at that point?

In 2008, researchers announced the discovery in human semen of hormones usually found in ovulating women. They theorized that follicle stimulating hormone, luteinising hormone, and estradiol may encourage ovulation in women exposed to semen. These hormones are not found in the semen of chimpanzees, suggesting this phenomenon may be a human male counter-strategy to concealed ovulation in human females. Other researchers are skeptical that the low levels of hormones found in semen could have any effect on ovulation.[11] One group of authors has theorized that concealed ovulation and menstruation were key factors in the development of symbolic culture in early human society.[12][13]

Mad bolster, are you familiar with Daniel Haneman? Coincidentally, I did in fact at one time find you mildly irritating, but that had less to do with intuition and more to do with bias. I am still quite cynical of libertarianism in politics but all that fades to insignificance when I can see you are most interested in a process of integrity, rather than a process of bludgeoning your opposition for the sole purpose of "winning" .

No, I'm not familiar with him.

I totally get your sometime sense of irritation; online personas often cannot effectively convey tone, and I can certainly be "relentless" at times. But I do thank you for over time seeing through some of that to the core integrity with which I try (often unsuccessfully) to think. The human condition is one of moving from confusion to confusion, but I do indeed care about intellectual honesty. Thank you for seeing that.

Ed, thanks for some more corroborating notes regarding my upthread assertion that upwards of 50% of pregnancies spontaneously and naturally end in miscarriage. That scientific fact really undercuts the empirical intuitions grounding the "potential" argument.

Regarding the idea that old, white guys are the ones that really have power over women's bodies and reproductive rights, and even that we doofuses aren't accomplishing anything in debate....

First of all, I take EXTREME exception to being called old! Dang it... I am NOT! Not yet, anyway. So there!

Now, with that off my chest (whew!) I would just say that the objectivity of evidence and rational discussion about evidence knows no gender, class, race, or station boundaries. If a puking drunk in a gutter can manage to articulate a rational position on this subject, her (or his) contributions to the debate have innate value. A sausage, or lack thereof, is irrelevant to the objective facts and the implications that can rationally be drawn from them.

"In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of the first importance" (Thomas Jefferson).

"Civilized life depends upon the success of reason in social intercourse, the prevalence of logic over violence in interpersonal conflict" (Juliana Geran Pilon).

One male; one female; same point.

Judith Jarvis Thompson, btw, is female; and her contributions to this discussion should be must-read for anybody presuming to publicize their thinking on the subject.

you implied that if it was a love relationship, then I should have known, and if I didn't know, then it was about sex.

sorry about that, I didn't mean to make the equivalence between a "relationship" and the presumption of responsibilities, and certainly nothing about "love."

I'm just saying that the asymmetries in the consequences of taking a pregnancy to term and raising the child to adulthood are the basis of a set of deeper assessments than cannot be expressed in a Shakespearean sonnet... they are evolutionarily deep. There are modern examples of those asymmetries (such as the differential compensation rate of males and females in the workforce due to child bearing).

But had you been involved in the decision making, what would you have decided?

Bottom line, science tells us that "spontaneous abortion" is not at all rare, it is actually common.

This is a fact. I think if we were all Christians we would scientifically try to rectify this problem..

But I'm not taking a stance of Christianity here, just that of a citizen. IME, Christians argument against abortion has NEVER been to regulate a women's choice. Not at all! It is with pure relevance to the preciousness of life. When a woman becomes aware of being pregnant, she has a 75% chance of giving birth to a human being. Since a women's womb is the only place a human comes from why should she be the only one with a voice to say wether it lives or not? Exaggerating but, what if all women were to say they didn't want to give birth. All mankind could cease. Around the world millions of abortions have taken place because science showed the fetus to be a girl. And in some society's they feel that females aren't as useful as a males. Jus pointing out others ideas.

Here in the USA, Christians have fallen into the slump of trying to implement their ideals into laws. If they were Christ followers they could understand this is dumb and a sin. We started this country because we wanted a seperation between the state and church. We don't want the state telling us what to do, do we? When the makes a law like permitting people to smoke if their 18 or over. We must abide by that law just as everyone else, even if we don't agree with it. It is up to the morally advantaged Christian to preach on the benefits of not smoking.

The problem I see with Laws allocating things like smoking. Is that the undereducated people see it as OK if they're not breaking the law. We all know smoking is harmful to us, it's the number two killer in the US. But it seems to me that if the Law says it OK, IT should be responsible when my 52yro cousin dies of lung cancer.

Winston Churchill said, " I don't know how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it."

I think many Christians make up their minds by what their conscious (spirit) tells them. No one has the right to be anyone's judge, especially without ALL the individual facts. Unless of course it pertains to your own children.

I can feel for where Bluery is com'in from. But I'd almost say his language ain't to scientific..

The term "Soul" deffinitely came from a religious root. It's not scientific. From the bibles perspective, God surely paints a picture of the Souls awaiting to inhabit a human body. So for Christians to believe In eternal life, we must also think we were alive before this life. Just can't remember. But lookin around, I can easily see and imagine that the Creator of the universe could remember EVERY word I'd ever said. Or the count of hairs on my head. Christians with this point of view posses an intimate relationship with The Creator. And theirs to say God created the universe through thought by Love (Intelligent Design). He Spoke It into Existence! Where Evolution predicts visa-versa. So science cant comprehend the "soul".

what are your thoughts on periods?
did you know that if you continue taking the "active" birth control pills without stopping, you pretty much eliminate your period?
there's usually 21 active pills in a package, and then 7 placebos. so you scrap the placebos, and just start a new pack and voilà, no period.

When a woman becomes aware of being pregnant, she has a 75% chance of giving birth to a human being. Since a women's womb is the only place a human comes from why should she be the only one with a voice to say wether it lives or not?

I find this rather confusing... the mother will invest 9 months in the gestation, and likely a decade or so in the raising of the child. It is a huge expenditure of her resources, resources which she may not have. Since she had the largest stake in the endeavor shouldn't she have a great deal to say about embarking on that endeavor? In an evolutionary sense reproductive behavior is well established, and includes the consideration, the assessment of that investment.

Exaggerating but, what if all women were to say they didn't want to give birth. All mankind could cease.

so what then of individual liberty? are you saying women must be compelled to give birth?

The other dilemma is even more thorny, what if humans (I prefer that over "mankind" which you observe would not exist without "womankind") would cease to exist if they didn't stop reproducing at the current rates?

Everything is soul-less, there is no God, and you're right about everything. Kill at will.

Morality is not at all hinged on the existence of God or souls. You should try picking up a book or something on ethics. If your belief in God is the only thing keeping you from murdering your fellow humans, then you are by definition a psychopath.

It is obvious (at least to me) that this should not qualify as a human life

Human: 0 months

Credit: Byran

and that this SHOULD qualify as a human life..

Human: 9 months

Credit: Byran

Somewhere in that time it goes from a non-human to human. As is often the case, biology does not provide us with a clear dividing line. There is room for debate on when these rights of the individual should come into effect.

The soul however, is not something that has ever been scientifically tested. It is a religious concept which is taken on faith alone. So if you want to make the case that individual rights begin at conception, you need to do so without invoking a "soul"... at least if you believe that a 'separation of church and state' is something worth preserving.

A few pages back, Madbolter made a convincing argument that the line should be drawn at viability of life outside the womb. In effect, you get individual rights when you begin your life as an individual.

Another way of looking at it would be to consider brain activity. From Wikipedia:
"Electrical brain activity is first detected between the 5th and 6th week of gestation, though this is still considered primitive neural activity rather than the beginning of conscious thought, something that develops much later in fetation. Synapses begin forming at 17 weeks, and at about week 28 begin to multiply at a rapid pace which continues until 3 to 4 months after birth"

If conservatives would focus their efforts on just limiting abortions to the first 10 weeks (little to no electrical activity), then everyone could actually take them seriously. (91% of abortions occur in the first trimester anyways, and most that don't are for extenuating circumstances). I don't have a strong opinion on the matter myself, other than I find it ridiculous that a woman should be prevented from terminating an embryo which doesn't even have a functioning nervous system.

Current rates haven't changed much since since old rates, have they?
Only the amount that have been able to live

the current rates have doubled the population in our life times... it's not a steady number of people, it's an exponentially growing number of people... and that isn't going to work out in the long run.

I don't have a strong opinion on the matter myself, other than I find it ridiculous that a woman should be prevented from terminating an embryo which doesn't even have a functioning nervous system.

Well even if ur a Evolutionist, you can see there is a plan inplaceto give that embryo a nervous system! So as an Intelligent Design proponent, i can see a consciousness already planned. Thus in progress.

I'm willing to work on a time-line cut-off for which it would be illegal to abort. Along with an under age minor would need parental consent. And, if the abortion could have a negative effect to the mother. These would be my concern as a voter.

MadBolter1, I cannot offer you evidence of a soul. It's not a tangible thing. So, you win the argument. Everything is soul-less, there is no God, and you're right about everything. Kill at will.

That's a complete punt, and I'm not at all cowed by this thinly-veiled, actually in-your-face "capitulation."

I have not asked for "tangible" evidence! I've asked for ANY evidence, including (beyond empirical): rational or even Scriptural. ANYTHING at all.

Here, let me give you some clues. You could answer specific questions like these, just to give us an insight into your metaphysics:

1) Does a soul connect up with a body at the moment of human conception?

2) Does a soul connect up with the bodies of other species at the moment of their conception?

3) Does a soul's connection to a body get severed if the body is aborted?

4) What happens to a particular soul if its connection to a body is severed due to an abortion?

5) Are there, actually, "particular" souls, or is there some undifferentiated "soul stuff" that attaches to bodies and THEN becomes differentiated?

6) Are souls eternal, or do they spring into existence by some means when they get attached to bodies?

I could ask many more questions like these, but let's start with these, as even the answers to these will give us some initial insight into what you MEAN by a "soul."

Believe me, I am not opposed to the very notion of a soul. I am not a "naturalist" about metaphysics. I just expect a high level of rigor (and basic internal consistency) in any such theories, particularly when they are employed to justify legislation.

Hence, all these abortion haters are making God very mad, he told me so.

We are usually vehemently opposed to each other, Dr. F, so this is a rare opportunity to be on the same page about something.

I'll go you one better....

God is actually VERY MAD at these confused, pro-life "Christians," because most of them believe that these aborted babies jet straight to Heaven when they are aborted! God WANTS as many innocent souls in Heaven as He can possibly get (the Bible is clear about this), so He WANTS as much aborted conception to happen here on Earth as possible. If we could "factory farm" these souls straight into Heaven, that would be so much the better!

Now, I know that the foregoing paragraph is deeply offensive to many, but this paragraph actually reflects a SERIOUS internal consistency in the theology of most Christians. It is a serious enough problem that big guns like John Piper and R.C. Sproul devote chapters (plural) in books to resolving the (at least) paradox inherent in the mainstream theology!

And they do, to be frank, a PISS-POOR job of it!

They make God out to be some grand consequentialist, but then they cannot really wiggle out of the implications of their view. Their BEST response amounts to the lame claim: "Well, God ensures that these babies end up in Heaven where they ought to be, but He still holds the murderers responsible for their murders."

They never account for WHY abortion supposedly is murder, and they never account for why life is so sacred that, even when God Himself actually ensures its continuity (i.e.: no REAL death), this "murder" has real moral weight.

Conjoin a belief in immortal souls with the idea that the innocent jet straight to Heaven, and you have little left to even start to make a case for what "murder" actually IS. After all, if a being cannot REALLY die, then what IS a "murder?" It is nothing more than the termination of a physical body. But THAT turns out to be irrelevant, as we terminate "physical bodies" all the time that do not count as "murders."

When I scratch my arm and terminate the lives of millions of cells, I am told that this is not "murder" because these cells never had souls. But on Piper's and Sproul's view, so what? Souls don't NEED bodies to have everlasting life, and their connection with a body is, at best, a VERY transient and even seemingly pointless one. The body comes; the body goes; the soul goes on.

So, I kill a body that happened to be connected to a soul. Or I kill a body that didn't happen to be connected to a soul. So what? There is no practical difference and no genuine KILLING. The body is essentially (and I use that as a technical term) irrelevant! The SOUL is what has eternal life, and IT cannot be "murdered" by any means.

A soul never gets connected with a body, or a soul has its connection terminated "early" (whatever that means), and the net effect is IDENTICAL. You are still left with a soul that has everlasting life.

And God Himself ensures that He will literally "sort 'em out" to get the souls shuffled into the right places. So, FAR better to ensure that souls remain "innocent" (whatever that means) by GETTING them straight into Heaven asap, before they can be sullied by the "lusts of the flesh" that invariably occur almost immediately in the body.

No harm; no foul!

So, mainstream Christianity has a HARD row to hoe to explain exactly how its metaphysics even allow for "murder" in the morally-relevant sense at all, much more so the "murder" of the unborn.

That's a complete punt, and I'm not at all cowed by this thinly-veiled, actually in-your-face "capitulation."

I have not asked for "tangible" evidence! I've asked for ANY evidence, including (beyond empirical): rational or even Scriptural. ANYTHING at all.

I gave you my thoughts. What else do you want? I laid it out pretty well, but you chose to dismiss it. I chose to disagree with you. Why go on?

Here, let me give you some clues. You could answer specific questions like these, just to give us an insight into your metaphysics:

1) Does a soul connect up with a body at the moment of human conception?

Yes.

2) Does a soul connect up with the bodies of other species at the moment of their conception?

Yes

3) Does a soul's connection to a body get severed if the body is aborted?

Yes, it has died. Where it goes remains to be seen.

4) What happens to a particular soul if its connection to a body is severed due to an abortion?

Prolly saved due to the innocence. But I don't run the place.

5) Are there, actually, "particular" souls, or is there some undifferentiated "soul stuff" that attaches to bodies and THEN becomes differentiated?

6)

I don't know this answer.

Are souls eternal, or do they spring into existence by some means when they get attached to bodies?

Both.

I could ask many more questions like these, but let's start with these, as even the answers to these will give us some initial insight into what you MEAN by a "soul."

Believe me, I am not opposed to the very notion of a soul. I am not a "naturalist" about metaphysics. I just expect a high level of rigor (and basic internal consistency) in any such theories, particularly when they are employed to justify legislation.

I appreciate you not backing down, Bluering. You show at least guts. Of course you know that what you've offered are opinions and not explanations. But at least I can better understand your fervency about the subject.

Honestly, I'm saddened that you had no actual explanations to offer; and I don't feel good about continuing to just poke holes. So, rather than to "win," as you say, I prefer to withdraw from the discussion with you.

If bookie can do better, well, perhaps he/she will give it a shot.

Meanwhile, I DO hope you have a sense of why public policy should not be based upon a perspective that by your own admission is metaphysically inexplicable. Of course you'll vote your mind and conscience, and more power to you. I continue to hope that discussions like this will even more settle the minds of voters as to why government has no place in deciding a woman's rights in her own body.

Any 'explanation' on the souls of people has got to be opinion, it cannot be proven. But I gave my take on it.

As for the "Serb Nazis", do some research on the origins and nature of the "ethnic" Albanians. They were jihadist Muslims from all over the region.

Look at that area today. Dagestan, Chechnya, etc...It was the opening shots of the current war on radical Islam. As in Libya, we sided with the wrong side.

EDIT:

Meanwhile, I DO hope you have a sense of why public policy should not be based upon a perspective that by your own admission is metaphysically inexplicable. Of course you'll vote your mind and conscience, and more power to you. I continue to hope that discussions like this will even more settle the minds of voters as to why government has no place in deciding a woman's rights in her own body.

Don't lecture me on the rights of a woman, I never mentioned anything of the sort. I never mentioned denying a woman any 'rights'. I was simply arguing that a fetus is more than 'medical waste', that can be burned for fuel like a bad liver or a cancer riddled organ.

Maybe human life that is destroyed should be treated with some respect.

**In 1996, an armed organization calling itself the Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA launched an insurgency with guerilla attacks on Serbian security forces and killing and kidnapping civilians. The stated cause for the rebellion was the struggle for human rights.

The KLA was financed by the Albanian diaspora from Western Europe, with funds that may have come from Albanian organized crime organizations involved in drug trafficking. The collapse of the Ponzi schemes in neighboring Albania brought people to streets. Many arms stockpiles were expropriated and weapons from them smuggled over mountainous border to the KLA. The ethnic Serbian Yugoslav security forces stationed in Kosovo would often found themselves besieged in towns they were ordered to held until their replacements arrived at the end of the month. By the Spring of 1998, the KLA controlled one third of the province. Belgrade decided that it had had enough and launched an offensive, deploying army tanks and sending reinforcements (many of them veterans of wars in Croatia and Bosnia).** The offensive was a temporary success and the KLA almost defeated. Many Albanian civilain refugees were forced to find shelter in the forests through the Spring and Summer of 1998. This situation reminded many on the brutal ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Some observers offered a "wag the dog" explanation in which U.S. President Bill Clinton, then facing impeachment becuase of the Lewinsky scandal, hyped the human rights crisis to divert American attention and win a quick victory in international affairs. Other observers believe that he treated the crisis with the seriousness it deserved, given the horrors of the Bosnian War.

Don't lecture me on the rights of a woman, I never mentioned anything of the sort. I never mentioned denying a woman any 'rights'. I was simply arguing that a fetus is more than 'medical waste', that can be burned for fuel like a bad liver or a cancer riddled organ.

I was inclined to give you a pass earlier. Not anymore.

Look, you have not "argued" anything; you've done nothing but spout off with completely unsubstantiated "opinions."

And then when pressed, you punt and say that NO account of the soul even COULD be given. What's pathetic about that position is two-fold:

1) You seem to actually think that this punt makes your "opinion" as good as any other "opinion" out there. But it is NOT the case that "everybody's opinion is valid" (like, just because they hold it), or some crap like that. SOME opinions are flagrantly ridiculous, regardless of that fact that somebody believes them; and yours certainly SEEMS to fit that category. So, you don't get a pass with your punt.

2) A rigorous and plausible account CAN be given, and I even opened the door WIDE for you to offer a non-empirical case. Kant has done it. Nagel has done it. There's even a reasonable theological case that can be made (not by mainstream Christians, however!).

Of course, a reasonable theological case would, to my mind, merely provide some basis for a person to believe in the sacredness of the fetus; but that doesn't make ANY case for legislation! You claim to not be saying anything about legislation, but that's pretty disingenuous, given the nature of this thread.

In short, you have contributed nothing of substance to this discussion, yet you act like you have a valid view. Based on your discussion here, however, you DON'T.

You are unread, untutored, apparently pretty thoughtless on the subject, and nevertheless strongly opinionated. This is the worst possible combination in a civilized society!

(And for all the hand-waving, it's pretty clear that bookie is in the same boat.)

Maybe human life that is destroyed should be treated with some respect.

I absolutely agree, IF we're talking about PERSONS! But you have never even STARTED to make a case that a fetus is a person. And you have never even STARTED to distinguish between "human life" skin cells and "human life" fetuses. You just smuggle your opinion in everywhere, loading even the language of the discussion your way, but without ANY substantiation.

So, yet again, you just HAVE an opinion that you treat as though it is respectable (apparently just because you have it), although you have never bothered to do the hard work of assessing it for credibility or even presentability. You've had an opportunity in this thread to do some introspective assessment. But all you do is give yourself kudos for punting.

It doesn't matter what ethnicity or religion it's all about, the fascist bastards need to be identified and never forgotten. Not all Serbs are bastards obviously but my old neighbour was, despite being a swell guy to hang with. Apparently even the Bhuddists are right now demonstrating that even they can be fascist bastards.

Don't think for a second that I will not ride your ass into the ground on this Bluey. Capitulate or bring forth unchallengeable empirical evidence.

Take no prisoners

The Albanians started the conflict, and yes, the are accused of many war-crimes, including organ harvesting. They are not as innocent as many make the appear. And I'm not denying the viciousness of the Serbs. Let's just not forget what the Albanians had been doing.

Look, you have not "argued" anything; you've done nothing but spout off with completely unsubstantiated "opinions."

And then when pressed, you punt and say that NO account of the soul even COULD be given. What's pathetic about that position is two-fold:

1) You seem to actually think that this punt makes your "opinion" as good as any other "opinion" out there. But it is NOT the case that "everybody's opinion is valid" (like, just because they hold it), or some crap like that. SOME opinions are flagrantly ridiculous, regardless of that fact that somebody believes them; and yours certainly SEEMS to fit that category. So, you don't get a pass with your punt.

2) A rigorous and plausible account CAN be given, and I even opened the door WIDE for you to offer a non-empirical case. Kant has done it. Nagel has done it. There's even a reasonable theological case that can be made (not by mainstream Christians, however!).

Of course, a reasonable theological case would, to my mind, merely provide some basis for a person to believe in the sacredness of the fetus; but that doesn't make ANY case for legislation! You claim to not be saying anything about legislation, but that's pretty disingenuous, given the nature of this thread.

In short, you have contributed nothing of substance to this discussion, yet you act like you have a valid view. Based on your discussion here, however, you DON'T.

You are unread, untutored, apparently pretty thoughtless on the subject, and nevertheless strongly opinionated. This is the worst possible combination in a civilized society!

MB1, I gave my opinions. Lighten up. Someone asked, I gave my opinions. This a forum where many things are discussed, and opinions are offered.

Please take your self-congratulatory arrogance and condescension to a theological forum or somewhere else.

Since this hasn't been addressed, and since the statement has the potential to to provide misinformation to young males who might read it and...rely?...on it as a form of birth control

Isn't your "period time" the only time you can get pregnant? So why not refrain being active at that time, I wonder?

Why wouldn't you expect a "birth control" PILL to effect that timing?

NO! pregnancy occurs around time of ovulation, and ovulation timing can be affected by a number of circumstances, and can be variable month to month. However:

Ovulation can be calculated by starting with the first day of the last menstrual period (LMP) or by calculating 12-16 days from the next expected period. Most women ovulate anywhere between Day 11 – Day 21 of their cycle, counting from the first day of the LMP.

Generally,when a woman is having her period,it is a time of lesser likelihood of becoming pregnant - but it is NOT a certainty. Considering timing of ovulation is a great idea if you are SEEKING to become pregnant, but a really poor way if he hope is to b avoiding pregnancy.

As for abortion -it has been something that has been done for as long as women understood the ramifications of bearing a child. It is NOT a recent development. what IS new.... is that women have access to safe, clean, reliable abortions, and aren't labeled as criminals if they have one.

Outlawing abortion will NOT end abortions; it would only take us back to unsafe, dirty procedures for those who have the capacity to follow through, and forced servitude for those who lack the resources.

Outlawing abortion will NOT end abortions; it would only take us back to unsafe, dirty procedures for those who have the capacity to follow through, and forced servitude for those who lack the resources.

Nobody is talking about eliminating abortions. Maybe keeping them to the first trimester, but c'mon.

MB1, I gave my opinions. Lighten up. Someone asked, I gave my opinions. This a forum where many things are discussed, and opinions are offered.

Yes, and opinions are also shredded.

On this subject, I'm not likely to "lighten up." Unsubstantiated opinions on this subject in particular are profoundly dangerous to this society. Let the religious right get its way on this one, and the floodgates of oppression will open....

Bluey, think of it this way. If you don't rank opinions by way of quality then why not just spin a bottle to chose one?

No one does that so the fact is is that everyone does in fact rank opinion including yourself. the question is how. There is method available that can predictably make the best choices, and there is also method that is well known and proven to make the worst choices.

I gave you my best opinion at the time with a little bit of thought. I could do more, but what's the point?

One of the worst is to agree with an opinion because the person who holds it expresses themselves with confidence of certainty, so long as it supports your own bias, while providing no credible weighting of evidence which requires consideration of alternatives. That is how Hitler persuaded people - by charisma and lies.

This neither here nor there. It's irrelevant.

If a person can't understand what I'm saying by the time they are a half century old, I doubt they will and quite literally I doubt you ever will. There is something stubbornly belligerent about your position that is only admirable to an authoritarian personality.

You must be right, and I must be wrong because I disagree with you? That's profound!

You obviously care about these things otherwise you wouldn't be so assertive. It is bizarrely perplexing that you would care yet not care why. Regardless the resultant gross error in your decisions is obvious. To place the moral culpability of the Serbs equal to their neighbours with such a flagrant conflation of fact is a prime example of bias corruption.

Bruce, I really appreciate your careful, systematic way of describing the process and intentions of discussion.

Bluering, I'm not "demanding" anything. I offered an approach that could make your position plausible to a reasonable mind. It really is the only approach that could make your position plausible. If you don't agree with that statement, then please do let me know what "assessment approaches" are nothing like what I was asking for.

To me, a response that says (paraphrased) "I just have an opinion. I offered it. I can't explain it. Nobody can explain it...." Well, that defies "assessment approaches." So, it does not render your perspective plausible to reasonable minds that don't already agree with you.

I "demand" only that somebody trying to convince me of something offer explanations. If you don't or can't, no problem. I remain, then, unmoved by the perspective. So, I'm just saying that you arouse in me exactly zero sympathy for your perspective or for whatever process you employed to arrive at it or internally assess it (if you do).

Besides, I think that I've already made it pretty clear that I think an early-stage fetus is nothing morally relevant. And I've actually argued for that perspective. The burden of proof is on the person that thinks the early-stage fetus is something over and above a skin cell on the moral-relevancy scale.

Intermittent reinforcements[edit]
Pigeons experimented on in a scientific study were more responsive to intermittent reinforcements, than positive reinforcements.[16] In other words, pigeons were more prone to act when they only sometimes could get what they wanted. This effect was such that behavioral responses were maximized when the reward rate was at 50% (in other words, when the uncertainty was maximized), and would gradually decline toward values on either side of 50%.[17] R.B Sparkman, a journalist specialized on what motivates human behavior, claims this is also true for humans, and may in part explain human tendencies such as gambling addiction.[18]

The debate here is really an "all or nothing" divide, as the religious right is really after a theocracy; abortion is just (they think) what ought to be an "obvious" thing we can all agree upon: WHO could seriously want to murder babies???

As you note, they completely obfuscate, because (as we've seen in the discussion on this very thread) it is NOT obvious that a single, fertilized cell is a "baby," and it's really hard to make the "baby" case during the whole first trimester. Hence the "life begins at conception" BS, and I say BS because the real issue has NEVER been about when "life" begins.

Thus, Bluering's "compromise" really gives the entire game away and would never be acceptable to the religious right.

And Rebumblecons have a SERIOUS problem with ever getting the presidency again, because the primary process has become more and more religious-right, with abortion being THE primary vetting issue. This means that a Rebumblecon candidate HAS to pander to the far right in order to get the nomination; but then THAT candidate is not generally electable. So he/she then spends all the time between the primary and the general election trying to "become" more "moderate," which leaves voters wondering, "Who IS this guy?"

As long as the religious right SO infests the Rebumblecon party, particularly the primary process, this is an increasingly daunting problem Rebumblecons face (over and above their many other problems).

One thing that would go FAR toward reducing this problem would be for "Christians" to get OFF of this abortion hobby-horse and quit vetting candidates largely by this measure alone.

Besides, I think that I've already made it pretty clear that I think an early-stage fetus is nothing morally relevant. And I've actually argued for that perspective. The burden of proof is on the person that thinks the early-stage fetus is something over and above a skin cell on the moral-relevancy scale.

So, what do you think I need to explain?

When does a clump of cells that will be a human being become relevant? Try to be specific.

When does a clump of cells that will be a human being become relevant? Try to be specific.

I already answered that question: At viability. That is when you have an independent entity that can be considered apart from the (mother's) body upon which it is otherwise entirely dependent for its existence.

Cut your finger off, and it dies and is nothing apart from the body it was part of.

Cut out a non-viable fetus, and it dies and is nothing apart from the body it was part of.

If you could cut off a finger and have it start growing and developing completely apart from the body it was once part of, you would certainly THEN have to start considering WHAT that thing IS and whether it should be considered to have individual rights.

In the case of a non-viable fetus, we don't have to worry about individual rights, because that thing is not an individual.

I already answered that question: At viability. That is when you have an independent entity that can be considered apart from the (mother's) body upon which it is otherwise entirely dependent for its existence.

When does that happen, even roughly? You appear to be dodging the original question.

Your whole approach to this is pretty transparent, so I'd like to just point out that there being just a bit of ambiguity on exactly when viability occurs is a FAR cry from your "account," which amounts to nothing more than: "The single cell has a soul, and I can't say anything about what that means, because nobody can."

However, there is not very much ambiguity, so in the interests of helping you see your way clear on this subject, I'll quote from an article on the National Institutes of Health site: "In the United States viability presently occurs at approximately 24 weeks of gestational age" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11753511);.

You can note that viability varies country by country, as medical technology and neonatal care varies country by country. However, you can't push the line of viability back and back all the way to the single cell (yet), and in fact the further you push it back even with the best technology, the odds increase dramatically that you end up with a baby that is severely disabled (mentally and physically) throughout its life. So, if you try to push "viability" back very far, you end up with a being that really is never a truly independent and normally-developing individual.

So, in the USA, about 24 weeks (with risks!).

However, I believe that viability might be employed to provide a principled line regarding "independence," which is certainly a necessary condition for a fetus to be considered rights-bearing; but that line does not, to my mind, provide a "trumping" consideration regarding women's rights! Hence, I am very sympathetic to the statements upthread to the point that it's a woman's right to choose, regardless of the line that viability might draw.

Have you read anything from Judith Jarvis Thomson yet, Bluering? Or do you prefer to remain unread and untutored on this subject? I know you'll never actually read the Realm of Rights, so I'll just point you to a Wikipedia article that can give you a "Cliff's Notes" version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion

If you want to discuss at a level that is not transparently disingenuous, there is a rich field to mine in Thomson's work (and the attempted replies to it). Your caviling about viability is just nonsense. Get serious.

love how the title of this thread is intended to denigrate those who bravely look outside of and take steps [even if they are sometimes mistaken] beyond the cave we continue to blinkingly emerge from. /s

nostalgia for a past that didn't exist is the soma of the dying and already dead.

^^^Weedge, you have to look at the big picture here. The premise behind this dating a horse article, is to program us into accepting (in the not too distant future) bestiality as being normal and acceptable. I kid you not.

The social programmers will (and are) working on getting us to accept pedophilia as well. Have a watch of Family Guy, sometime. Notice how the dog is always dating women, sleeping with them etc. Note how the baby is doing exactly the same thing with women, including making sexual inuuendos about it.

This is how we are literally programmed by the culture creators to accept whatever bent they have in store for us. Remember the tv show Three's Company? How Jack played the gay guy in front of the landlord, so that said landlord would accept Jack living with two women? That was done to get us to accept being gay as perfectly normal. NTTAWWI. This isn't my argument here. Hey, do whatever it is that floats your boat. But I do draw the line at having sex with children, or animals.

The social programmers will (and are) working on getting us to accept pedophilia as well. Have a watch of Family Guy, sometime. Notice how the dog is always dating women, sleeping with them etc. Note how the baby is doing exactly the same thing with women, including making sexual inuuendos about it